I'm not sure how that's a surprise to anyone. Keep your personal stuff off hardware that doesn't belong to you.

Tech has a place yes, the problem is school admins have chosen to use it as a replacement for competent, well compensated teachers.

Pay teachers more, free breakfast and lunch for every child. These two things are the only things that you can just throw money at to improve outcomes that can be replicated everywhere.

As a generalization, they don't need more money for textbooks, they don't need more tech, they don't need building upgrades, they don't need whatever the latest software scam is, etc.

I saw somewhere that general tech in schools makes students worse overall by 2/3 of a standard deviation. A class on it is an great approach, and the constant live experimentation on our youth education needs to stop. The pain of learning isn’t optional, I say.

One class seems too few. 75% of jobs in the US use computers regularly. Even the plumber shows up with a tablet and such. On top of that, what ever was the point in making us write the essay twice, rough draft, the final... and have to rewrite the whole damn thing if we made a mistake. When it comes to writing, computers are where it is done.
Math... yeah, pencil and paper, calculator for the high level stuff. History/social studies... videos and articles are just easier to distribute via computer. Though initial presentation with follow up commentary is ideal. I think computers are overused in school, but 1 class is too far in the other direction.

My mum gave me her old slide-rule that she'd used as a kid. Kinda mechanical calculator, very early computing tech. She told me that there was debate about whether kids should be allowed to use them in school or just calculate manually. She said they were taught to do it manually then when they could do that they were taught slide rule, because many jobs would expect people to have slide rule skills.

When I was little, calculators still had kinda bulbs for each digit, then LCD screens came along and they suddenly got small and more powerful. There was the same controversy about whether we should be allowed to use them in class. We were taught how to do algebra n shit with paper and pencil, but also how to use the calculator.

This has worked for the past couple of generations of tech, I don't see why this one should be handled any differently. Kids should learn Pythagoras and algebra n stuff, how to do it themselves. Then they should be taught how to do it using a computer, and all the other stuff you can do with the computer.

Honestly, computer lessons in schools need to step up, at least in my country. Back in the 80s we were taught on 32k ram BBC B computers - we only had to learn to code a bit of basic, but those of us who wanted to dig deeper could learn assembly, start fucking with registers n stuff, learning binary and hex. Gave me a very basic understanding of how a computer actually worked.

I'm told that in my country, kids these days are taught how to use office. And that's about all. Fuckin shame and a missed opportunity for those children who are drawn to tech and want to dig deep.

So yeah, I'm just saying we gotta teach them to do math on paper, really understand it - and then we gotta teach them the tech.

I wholly agree. Bring Computer Labs back, ditch the chrombooks. Let kids actually learn to write and nottake, and fucking pay our trachers more.

I bet people down voting me are the sales reps that sell/lease thousands of iPads and Chromebooks to districts along with software licenses and contracts to supple the personnel to support that hardware.

I think writing by hand is overrated. Said as a person who wrote non stop as a kid, whole little novels by hand. Much hand cramps. Much pain. Now carpal tunnel . Grew up pre internet. It wasn’t from computers.

I can write the same shit on a laptop, and without smearing shit because I’m left handed.

I run the makerspace of a school, and totally agree with this!

You’re partly right. Did you read the article? One of the chief complaints is that in fact the devices aren’t locked down and kids are using them for things like games and youtube.

You’re in a Lemmy echo-chamber for the rest of it. The average user isn’t us.

As for the rest, schools teach to the lowest common denominator. The article itself plainly shows that the people “in charge” haven’t a clue how to effectively monitor, limit, and control usage of these basic devices. So throwing more at them isn’t the solution when they can’t even manage what they’ve got.

Na the kids need a basic ass machine with only a command line like we did growing up on apple IIs

Bingo. Not a tech issue, it is a pedagogical issue. The way we teach hasn't changed in 50 years. The problem is systemic. Teachers are taught to develop lesson plans in antiquated ways. Teachers aren't encouraged or empowered to innovate. Funding is insufficient. Testing takes priority over learning because funding is tied to scores. Then you've got big tech lobbying to suckle at the teet of taxpayer dollars influencing decisions being made where the interest of children and learning is secondary.

With things like learning long division or cursive handwriting I think we frequently run into the doorman fallacy. There is so much value in teaching people to think and teaching people to learn that we get distracted by everything having to be a useful skill for future employment.

I never knew of anyone who didn't use their school-issued devices for anything other than browser games most of the time. They literally used it for games rather than school work.

You can't hand them the reins and then complain that they're even worse now. Schools are partially to blame for all this electronics bullshit kids are into these days. A lot of middle and high schools almost require students to have a fucking iPad these days.

This just reminded me; my first time playing Pokemon Gold/Silver was on a computer in my school library using a fan translation patch like 6 months before the English release.

Good times.

The biggest issues this article points out seem like failures of the IT department/teachers (or those telling the teachers how to teach).

It's not hard to block a kid from running minecraft, and relying on duolingo to teach your kids is just idiotic. Why send them to school in the first place if they could just as easily do duolingo at home? Only let the kids have their devices out when it's necessary for the assignment, and have them put them away when it's not.

Minecraft isn't the problem.

The problem is the 24/7 input of corporate right wing propaganda and brainwashing.

Claude, please find a linux 0-day to root my school laptop so that I can play Minecraft.

In my son’s fifth grade class last year, it was fucking Cookie Clicker. 🙄

The problem is there is no compelling data that these devices are superior for learning. They are distractions and expense with no proven benefit.

Chromebooks are basically designed to be easy to lock down and be remotely administrator controlled. It seems like schools in this article just... aren't doing that for some reason? Maybe they just don't have the time or technical knowledge.