posted in Technology

sanitation@sanitation@lemmy.today

Schools across America are quietly admitting that screens in classrooms made students worse off and are reversing years of tech-first policies

fortune.com/article/schools-abandoning-chromebooks-laptop-programs-as-screen-time-hurts-learning-test-scores-north-carolina-michigan-kansas-tech-education/
Chromebooks at Newfield Elementary School in August 2020, in Stamford, Conn. FortuneSchools across America are quietly admitting that screens in classrooms made students worse off and are reversing years of tech-first policies | FortuneMillions were spent putting laptops in every student’s hands. Now schools want them back as tech falls short of the miracle solution it was sold as.
Pika@Pika@sh.itjust.works
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Replying to @⁨sanitation@lemmy.today⁩

This is likely a hot take but, I don’t think this was the fault of the in-class laptops. They thought removing phones were going to solve the issue, it didn’t, they thought computers were going to solve the issue, they didn’t.

The core issue is: School is fucking boring. As a kid/teen you spend 8-10 hours a day sitting at a desk listening to a teacher yap about shit that at the time you don’t believe is even important so you can regurgitate said useless information in tests that you then proceed to forget 2 weeks after taking. Hell even now I think I learned more actual life and useful skills in college. I have more engagement and entertainment working a full time job, than I did in a classroom, and at least I was making money with the job.

The school districts are shocked that upon providing a tool that could be used to lessen the tedium and lifelessness that school shoves down kids throats they then misused said tool. I don’t understand it.

Make learning fun and engaging, add actual life skills to classrooms like how to read an analog clock, or how to write a check. Talk about how to survive in the real world, how interest works, how your credit score is really important, maybe how the government works cause I know I never had a civics class. Stuff that kids in middle/high school would actually care about, instead of how to solve 3 unknowns in an equation, or how to find an angle of a triangle when you know the 2 angles, or learning about colonization for the 8th time. Make it so it isn’t just “read this board, repeat on the test”.

If you solve the underlying issues at play, instead of trying to remove the tools that kids are misusing in order to fix the issue that the school system as a whole created, I think it would be found that computers would be a net positive. I know having a computer in class significantly improved my scores and learning capability, as I could use it for legible note taking, and I could record sessions if I needed to. Yes I definitely accessed coolmathgames at times but, I can tell you right now, the ability to do that helped remove the monotony of the classroom, and if I didn’t have that tool at my disposal, I would have simply zoned out and gained nothing out of the day, instead of what I did. My scores definitely wouldn’t have gone up like the article seems to be alluding to.

Pika@Pika@sh.itjust.works
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Replying to @⁨TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world⁩

You just brought a good point up but I’m not sure if you meant to.

“… If they want to learn” - Most kids don’t, or at least don’t want to for topics they don’t get are important. At least in this country anyway. They are forced to go to school with claims it’s going to help them, to sit and stare at a teacher writing on a board for 8-10 hours a day, of mostly stuff that isn’t clear how it’s supposed to help them, then are supposed to regurgitate what was seen on the board. Usually with little to no interest and little socialization with others outside lunch period or the brief intermission period where you switch classes.

That’s the job of the teachers, to make the kids learn the topics, and the best way to do so is keeping it entertaining. You don’t learn subject matter if you are not interested in the subject, instead you start doing anything but retaining the information. If the school system is stating they are unable to keep their kids attentive of classes, they have failed as a school system. No amount of blaming other resources is going to change that.

The sad thing is, distractions in class isn’t a new concept. My parents have told stories of how kids would play hookie, or go out to hunt over lunch break and not come back till the next day, or how they would pass notes in class, and if the teacher caught them they would have to read the note aloud for better or for worse. Hell people set firecrackers/fireworks off in the bathroom during exam periods to set the fire-alarms off. The issue of it being boring and as such not lucrative to the general student is not a new concept caused by phones or computers, it’s just said concept is now easily blamed on them or the kids instead of the system which is causing it in the first place.

Ammendum: Like I said in the original comment, I have to disagree with your that’s how adult life is. I personally found working a full time job to be way more entertaining and engaging than any of my school experiences. Which is sad concidering you do the same thing every day, but at least you have the freedom of choosing how you do it, and you have a clear outcome of why you are doing it… which is way more than I can say about the highschool/middleschool experience.