Social media to be fully banned for under-16s in UK.

[Bunch]

I'm probably completely wrong here (and perhaps it depends on in what country you live), so please correct me, but: I was under the impression that an iPad (or the Android based equivalent) was genuinely required for the digital way the educational material is taught these days ? If I got that right, it's not really 'weird resistance' as far as I understand things, but rather simply the way an 'education/school' works currently.

About a decade back there was a big push to go all digital. Most teachers I have spoken to are against it as it's another thing the teachers have to be trained on, manage, etc but it has its pros and cons both for student and teachers. It makes collaboration easier and grading can really be sped up. However almost nothing they are teaching actually requires it for learning the material. They made a choice to go away from physical books and handwriting. There's growing evidence that is not helping learning. Plus what we have seen is the devices are never locked down enough to keep kids from using them for games or shopping or other distractions and the kids rush through the assignments to get to preferred activities(games,shopping,etc). That would always happen to some extent but the big difference is more teachers are unable to tell if the kids are working or gaming as the same device is used for both activities.
When we polled the district teachers on their estimate of how much time the kids were on screens and then compared it with what the devices reported it was off anywhere from 30-300% (teacher reports 5-10 minutes of screen time in their class, device shows 30 minutes and what activities it's being used on). Most teachers are not taking advantage of the screen management tools to lock things down more. They take work to learn and implement and most seem to believe the IT department has it more locked down than they do. IPads are actually the worst because they do not allow IT to see screen time usage without physically having the device in hand. Everyone (Superintendent, School Board, Teachers, Principals, Parents) all beloved that IT could see that remotely and take actions accordingly. IT could only see basically DNS activity and data transfers. So I go to a JavaScript game site and the browser caches the JavaScript first time. After that all IT sees is the Ad requests which it blocks. Kid plays games for 20 minutes with virtually no remotely detectable activity. Whole district was unaware until we started asking why our kid was never getting any classwork done in class and we dug into his iPad. The kids look like model students, quiet, easy to manage and engaged completely with their iPad so it doesn't stand out to the teacher as a problem. Kids are highly proficient at tab switching so the wandering teacher never sees it either.

When you find out your kid is spending up to 3-4 hours a day playing games on a school issued device in school you get a bit pissed off

 

[abazaba]

About a decade back there was a big push to go all digital. Most teachers I have spoken to are against it as it's another thing the teachers have to be trained on, manage, etc but it has its pros and cons both for student and teachers. It makes collaboration easier and grading can really be sped up. However almost nothing they are teaching actually requires it for learning the material. They made a choice to go away from physical books and handwriting. There's growing evidence that is not helping learning. Plus what we have seen is the devices are never locked down enough to keep kids from using them for games or shopping or other distractions and the kids rush through the assignments to get to preferred activities(games,shopping,etc). That would always happen to some extent but the big difference is more teachers are unable to tell if the kids are working or gaming as the same device is used for both activities.
When we polled the district teachers on their estimate of how much time the kids were on screens and then compared it with what the devices reported it was off anywhere from 30-300% (teacher reports 5-10 minutes of screen time in their class, device shows 30 minutes and what activities it's being used on). Most teachers are not taking advantage of the screen management tools to lock things down more. They take work to learn and implement and most seem to believe the IT department has it more locked down than they do. IPads are actually the worst because they do not allow IT to see screen time usage without physically having the device in hand. Everyone (Superintendent, School Board, Teachers, Principals, Parents) all beloved that IT could see that remotely and take actions accordingly. IT could only see basically DNS activity and data transfers. So I go to a JavaScript game site and the browser caches the JavaScript first time. After that all IT sees is the Ad requests which it blocks. Kid plays games for 20 minutes with virtually no remotely detectable activity. Whole district was unaware until we started asking why our kid was never getting any classwork done in class and we dug into his iPad. The kids look like model students, quiet, easy to manage and engaged completely with their iPad so it doesn't stand out to the teacher as a problem. Kids are highly proficient at tab switching so the wandering teacher never sees it either.

When you find out your kid is spending up to 3-4 hours a day playing games on a school issued device in school you get a bit pissed off

Thank you for taking the time to inform me on that. I think I agree.

The only thing I can personally provide any feedback on, is that you did touch on the point that 'handwriting' notes (etc.) instead of 'typing them on a digital keyboard' makes you learn the material far better/easier, if I understand the research on that topic correctly.

Thanks again.

 

[Horwath]

I'm not sure that using stupidity as the basis for excluding someone from voting is a good approach. It might sound tempting in theory, but in practice it means that someone will get to decide who is and isn't stupid, and that would be a recipe for disaster.

Hehe, call it inexperience then, or being biased to making an unwise decision.

and we do it all the time with all kinds of things;
you have this age limit for this
you have that age limit for that

it's just the society consensus at what age limit is required for what specific activity.

 

[Bunch]

Thank you for taking the time to inform me on that. I think I agree.

The only thing I can personally provide any feedback on, is that you did touch on the point that 'handwriting' notes (etc.) instead of 'typing them on a digital keyboard' makes you learn the material far better/easier, if I understand the research on that topic correctly.

Thanks again.

That's the current theory and science but unfortunately almost all education research seems to be mid level quality at best. It's why when people try to end a conversation by saying "Trust the science!" I recoil a bit. I like science and I want to believe in it but the current scientific environment doesn't give me warm fuzzies that it's conducted rigorously and repeatable. It's actually one of the things that frustrates me even about pushing for lower screen usage. I don't entirely trust the folks doing that to not be in it for their own profit or cult of personality.

It all gets so circular it's frustrating. A bunch of parents in our district are pushing for less/more intentional screen time because we are seeing the harm being done (and the benefits which there definitely are some). When you take it up with administration they say this is a fad to which I answer "you mean like the fad you grabbed onto to introduce all this stuff?".
There is a place and time for tech in classes for sure. I do t want it banned at all. I want it used with actual intention and when it clearly is beneficial rather than just assume it's going to be all sunshine and roses.

The reason this is coming up now is because of the success of cell phone bans in school. Cell phones were a clear distraction and almost everyone agrees they are not appropriate for a classroom environment. But the thing with cell phones is they played into the narrative of "Parents just need to be better/not get them this". "Parents are bad" sells really well at schools. When the cell phones went away the kids switched to the semi filtered school devices which the schools were not prepared for. Now they are responsible for the distraction, porn, games, etc and getting them to own up to their crap is like pulling teeth.

 

[Belen]

That was our answer too, however the public school then handed them an iPad for use in classes and we got to see just how much time they spend playing video games and doing whack a mole for what tunnel can be found through the school security. The truth is our schools are barely funded enough to educate and not funded enough for IT.
We are pushing to remove the iPads but that's facing weird resistance from a small subset of English/Math teachers. Exceptions were always planned for tech related electives so they weren't the problem.

They gave our kids Chromebooks that were locked down. We just moved our kids to a public charter that does not use Chromebooks. They have computer labs but they do not teach using apps etc.

The Chromebooks seemed fine at first but after Covid, they were used to the point of 3/4 of the school day on a device. They taught reading by having the kids reach to their Chromebook, out loud, and the program would tell them what they did wrong and make them read it again. Of course, the entire class was shouting at their Chromebooks causing mass issues in school but admin forced teachers to use the program.

It was dreadful.

Math was worse. We had a teacher email us repeatedly to tell us to stop helping our kids with math at home. The kids are only allowed to use new math and the 2nd grade addition and subtraction we were showing our daughter would not be taught till 4th grade. My daughter came home in 2nd grade unable to quickly do 8+8 in her head. I learned basic tables in Kindergarten in the 80s. The teacher told us that doing flash cards and memorization techniques were wrong and that they do not teach kids that way because it was wrong to get them to do things that would bore them.

They learned 3 different ways to do add and subtract that had them take 5 times longer to get an answer. I was told this helped them really "understand" math concepts except my kid took 5 minutes to answer 8+8. She gets straights As. I could not take it any longer.

 

[Retros_x]

Honestly its a good thing. But I hope they implement it better than australia. Also the memes are correct: you also need to invest in spaces and communities for the youth. Unfortunately most Western countries ignore that and save on the youth, community and youth centers get less and less in most countries I am aware of.

 

[Horwath]

Math was worse. We had a teacher email us repeatedly to tell us to stop helping our kids with math at home. The kids are only allowed to use new math and the 2nd grade addition and subtraction we were showing our daughter would not be taught till 4th grade. My daughter came home in 2nd grade unable to quickly do 8+8 in her head. I learned basic tables in Kindergarten in the 80s. The teacher told us that doing flash cards and memorization techniques were wrong and that they do not teach kids that way because it was wrong to get them to do things that would bore them.

They learned 3 different ways to do add and subtract that had them take 5 times longer to get an answer. I was told this helped them really "understand" math concepts except my kid took 5 minutes to answer 8+8. She gets straights As. I could not take it any longer.

this is awful,
I learned multiplication table in 1st grade, and honestly every kid should know it by the age of 7 or 8.
before writing in cursive.

this is betraying our kids.

just help your kids with math as much as you can, and other subjects if you are good at them

 

[Belen]

this is awful,
I learned multiplication table in 1st grade, and honestly every kid should know it by the age of 7 or 8.
before writing in cursive.

this is betraying our kids.

just help your kids with math as much as you can, and other subjects if you are good at them

We have been doing flash cards and now we’re up to 5x multiplication tables at home.

She could always get basic addition and subtraction right but it would take her a bit to do the math for things that should not have required any time at all.