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Schools+laptops is absolutely crazy. The amount of incompetence is beyond reason. My daughter(12)'s keyboard got broken, now she is afraid she wont be able to

Schools+laptops is absolutely crazy. The amount of incompetence is beyond reason. My daughter(12)'s keyboard got broken, now she is afraid she wont be able to take her exam with an external keyboard because there is a spyware extension they use called 'safe exam browser' that might block her computer when she plugs the keyboard. Most of the kids are just using it to snapchat during class. I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools.

Traubenfuchs 3y ago
> Schools + laptops Are there any believable success story for this from involved people (= students+teachers+parents)?
- jon-wood 3y ago
  Hi. I had fairly severe dyslexia (and it turns out undiagnosed ADHD) in school, I could read fine, but handwriting in particular was hideously slow, to the point where I wasn't able to actually learn much because I was spending all my time laboriously writing things out. Once my parents persuaded the school to let me use an electronic word processor (I hesitate to call it a laptop by modern standards) for anything that involved writing it made the world of difference. As a happy side effect it also had a BASIC interpreter, which I would absolutely use to distract myself in boring lessons. I've been a professional software developer more or less since I left school. Not sure what the lesson is there... give kids laptops but only allow text editors and compilers?
  - throwaway71271 3y ago
    > give kids laptops but only allow text editors and compilers one commander x16 per child :)
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    "...dyslexia (and it turns out undiagnosed ADHD) in school," "...for anything that involved writing it made the world of difference." No doubt what you say is true but it's odd as research has shown that using a keyboard requires additional cognition and thus usually more is learned when taking handwritten notes specifically because it's less mentally taxing. If I recall there was research to this effect on an HN story in the last week or so. It would be interesting to know why the opposite seems to be so with you.
    - liveoneggs 3y ago
      keyboarding is a common accommodation for dysgraphia
    - jon-wood 3y ago
      The bit I forgot to mention here was that alongside all that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for. That means that I can write without thinking about the mechanical action of doing so at all, which was never the case for handwriting. Possibly given sufficient focus on practicing handwriting that would have worked as well but several years of near constant handwriting in school never got to that point, while 30-60 minutes a day of practice at typing had me able to beat the speed I could handwrite at within a month or two.
      - hilbert42 3y ago
        "...that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for." You're very lucky indeed that your parents encouraged you to type, clearly it's put you in good stead. My mother had been a professional typist and stenographer and knew Pitman shorthand to a tee. She could type multiple pages without a single mistake for she learned in the days before wordprocessors and correction fluid—a single mistake would mean retyping the whole page. Also, she worked in a law firm where cross-outs and corrections were just not acceptable. Simply, she had to be accurate and word-perfect every time and she was. Yet at no time did she take the time to teach me to type nor teach me shorthand. It's not as if she wouldn't have done so had she known better but it just wasn't acceptable to teach boys what was then considered women's work. This is one big regret of my life as my typing is at best still scratchy and I do not know shorthand which in hindsight would have been a godsend. I need to correct my point about handwriting and learning. I'm now not sure whether the story was linked from HN or not but it's definitely on Sabine Hossenfelder's Science News YouTube channel here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc
jeroenhd 3y ago
Laptops are pretty useful for writing essays and doing research. It's also good to get some computer experience in, because the younger generation is growing up only knowing smartphones and doing as terrible a job in environments where they need to use computers (offices and such) as the retiring baby boomers are. Saving files using a mouse, and printing documents isn't something you know from birth, and we owe it to our children to teach them some basic computer experience. I can't fathom while you'd use anyone's personal device to take tests, though. What could possibly be taught to a 12 year old that couldn't be tested in the form of a written exam? It's always the tyrannical anti cheat software that turns any good idea into a terrible experience.
lukan 3y ago
"I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools." But can one really hope, to prepare students for life then?
- blackhaz 3y ago
  We didn't have any tech in school and yet we've turned out just fine, now sitting here and typing this on HN. I'm all for banning tech from schools. Allowing Google to enter the school system has been a crime against our children.
  - lakpan 3y ago
    > crime against our children. Sounds a bit hyperbolic. How are kids being hurt by Google specifically?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - blackhaz 3y ago
      Take a read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-021-00599-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-021-00599-4 Not specifically related to Google, but we are making our kids write less, which literally dumbs them down: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264763007_Handwriting_in_early_childhood_education_Current_research_and_future_implications https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264763007_Handwriti... (You can find lots of research on this, there's no controversy here.) Somewhat less of a profound problem is the extreme amount of pollution: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-highlights-problems-of-short-lived-laptops-in-schools/ https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-hi... My kid has brought his third Chromebook in just a few years from school. We are all going to pay for all this, while the big tech generates billions of profits and the whole planet is marching towards tech feudalism.
caldarons 3y ago
As someone who went to a high school (Italy) where in the first two years each student had a laptop they could use in the classroom, I agree that having a computer per student is a bad idea. In my experience, what ended up happening was that pupils who already knew their way around a computer didn't really get any extra benefit from using cmputers in the classroom and those who didn't like using computers hated it even more when forced to write out an assignment on a keyboard as supposed to handwriting. Most importantly though, they were a HUGE distraction. Any time the lesson got boring because the teacher wasn't good or just not good at getting the kids engaged in the lesson (which happened quite often sadly, but that is another discussion) we would all just start playing on the computers. Some kids came to school just to play videogames and barely learned anything. Now, some of these issues (like bad professors, smart kids getting bored because of slow pace of lessons) have always been present in every school all over the world but I do think that having tech in the classroom just makes things worse, as now even those who would have normally followed the lesson are tempted to just turn on their computer and pretend to take notes when really they are playing Candy crush. It's bad enough being a teenager and being bombarded with stimuli from your phone and social media, having that kind of distraction at school just makes things even worse. So yeah, I think tech in school is one of those things that sounds great but usually just back-fires in spectacular ways (imho).
- op00to 3y ago
  It’s amazing that laptops were the thing that introduced distraction to pupils in school. Not paper football. Not whispering. Not passing notes. Not staring out the window. Not sleeping. Not spending too much time in the bathroom.
  - squarefoot 3y ago
    I recall of epic battles with pens turned into blowguns. Making lessons interesting is a lost art, and uninterested pupils will always find a way to distract themselves with what they have at hand, laptops or not.
    - op00to 3y ago
wslh 3y ago
> I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools. If we are talking about high schools and mainly technical high schools banning tech is contrary to the point of the school. I think a balanced view is better: carrying laptops on classes where you need them and also adapt classes if laptop could be beneficial. Even in elementary school, my child has robotics. In general, I think politicians use binary yes/no options because they are lazy and/or incapable of working or thinking harder.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  It seems common to confuse teaching children about technology and having children taught by technology. The former is essential to a modern economy and way of life. The latter is road to laziness, poor mental health and terrible learning outcomes.
  - wslh 3y ago
    Agree 100%. The problem is that politics is the slowest and more incompetent mile . And here we are not talking about really complex issues like wars and/or terrorism.
- logifail 3y ago
  > laptops on classes where you need them Apart from lessons directly about computing and/or technology - of which there may be a handful of hours per week in a regular highschool - the number of subjects which "need a laptop" in high school is vanishingly small. > politicians use binary yes/no options because they are lazy and/or incapable of working or thinking harder Lobbyists don't even use binary. They're always pushing their product.
  - kuschku 3y ago
    A lot of natural sciences classes benefit from doing experiments. And those are much easier and more rewarding when you've got probes connected to different parts of the experiment logging their data to a laptop. My old high school used the LabPro/LoggerPro platform for that, and it became a core part of how physics and chemistry was taught. https://www.vernier.com/product/labpro/ https://www.vernier.com/product/labpro/
ho_schi 3y ago
As far as I know Sweden is rolling back[1]large parts of the digitalization at schools. Not just because of cloud usage, maintenance and incompetence. The digital devices harm learning. Sweden will spend 60 million for reintroducing actual books, focus on actual reading and writing (important for learning and motoric ability). I’m not surprised. While I’m sceptic about many positions of Manfred Spitzer [2] (University of Ulm) I’m afraid that he is right in many areas. A tablet is not the tool to discover the world for a child. They need to view, touch, smell and focus on matters. Putting aside that Apple (iPad), Google (Chromebook) and Microsoft (Surface) just want to train child’s to depend on their stuff forever. We can still introduce computers at the age of 12 and the kids will adapt - and teach required basics (control your data, understand technic on high level, touch-typing, how you can access knowledge…and that a lot of companies and people are hostile). [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/sweden-says-back-to-basics-schooling-works-on-paper https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/sweden-says-ba... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Spitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Spitzer
- Alifatisk 3y ago
  > Sweden is rolling back[1]large parts of the digitalization at schools I hope this becomes a trend! I’ve always hated the idea of being dependent on electronic devices during school.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Actual reading is super important; the letteredness of people has been in decline for decades, and while it's partially to blame on the shift in entertainment preferences, schools de-emphasising reading and understanding in favor of other skills has been a big factor as well. Your remark about the suppliers wanting to get the kids "hooked" on their products isn't new btw, this was happening 20+ years ago already with MS Office and co.
  - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    Letteredness = literacy, right?
happytiger 3y ago
.
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  Nobody is arguing that they shouldn't teach tech at all. When they're talking about bans, they're likely referring to for general classes (math, English, science...etc) and would of course be happy with a computer class that teaches typing, Excel, PPT, and some actual computer/STEM stuff like basic programming. It may sound old fashioned, but books work just as well for most classes with a lot less distraction. Assuming you let your kid watch a little TV or play video games...they're no longer getting 1-2 hours of screen time per day like we did, but rather more like 5-6 hours per day which is likely not healthy. (Story Time) I had a crazy woman teach a computer elective in highschool, but she made sure everyone left the class typing efficiently without looking and we all knew how to use Excel and PPT. It really helped in college engineering and of course in the work force knowing a little Excel. The ppt stuff sounds ludicrous, but I use it a LOT at work as research and analysis is often summarized and presented to less technical stakeholders in that format. TBH, she basically made sure we were experts in the blue collar aspects of computing that office workers everywhere use. She also taught some history of computing and made sure we all knew common computer terminology like what OS, GUI, DOS, RAM, ROM...etc all meant. In hindsight it was a pretty useful class. The weirdest thing in the class...the teacher had a question on the final that asked which book of the Bible was most like the history of computing. All of us 8th-10th graders were absolutely dumbfounded where this bizzare question came from. Apparently the answer was Exodus, but she couldn't explain to us why and indicated it should be obvious if we had seen Pirates of Silicon Valley.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > If anything, the real issue is that the current school laptops suck. If anything, schools are failing profoundly in preparing kids for a technological world. I would rather claim that this is a preparation for the corporate world where (except for the technology sector) work computers suck and are filled with corporate spyware. :-)
- kergonath 3y ago
  > If anything, schools are failing profoundly in preparing kids for a technological world. This argument is often made (and also wrt preparing pupils for their professional life). I don’t think it the reasons you imply are right. The problem is that nothing they could use now in school will prepare them for what they will need to use in the future. The software, tools and devices they will need will change as technology keeps evolving. What they need to learn is the basics, how to adapt to a new platform and core OPSEC principles. And they can learn that on pretty much anything. > We need more hackers. I was a kid of the 1990s, I know what you mean. But I also was a hacker. We had access to computers at school, which was great. But we did not have to use them all the time for things that are better done by other means of communication. My kid just spent a couple of hours doing some programming on his school laptop, which is fantastic. What is not is requiring the same laptop to take exams with bullshit spyware and requiring it in the classroom for lectures that would be better without them. Then, they are a distraction and they do not help. > I just spent three hours last night working on spanish homework on a school supplied chromebook with a high schooler, and it was pathetic how bad the UX was, how poorly the laptop performed, and just how painful the entire experience is. Yes, Chromebooks are terrible. They are actually a hindrance more than anything else.
7thaccount 3y ago
My kid had tablets in kindergarten that did the majority of the lessons. It's pretty horrifying in a lot of ways (way too much screen time), but has some advantages. If your kid learns well that way, they can move ahead at their own pace. They do a lot of phonics in my kids class. She finished all her phonics lessons early in the year, so now she just uses that time to read a few chapter book chapters instead that I send with her to school, which is much more relevant than just doing extra phonics anyway (that's another story though).
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
The amount of damage and breakages to these laptops has to be insane. Teenagers yeet their bags, mess with each other's tech, etc. As a school you can't make the parents responsible for damages, because a lot simply cannot afford replacements or repairs. While IT skills are important and should be taught at schools, please do it in the traditional fashion; have a computer lab, make everything abuse resistant, and get a favorable repair / maintenance contract. We have a 15 year old that managed to destroy 3 or 4 laptops and four phones in the span of five years.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  There is no “traditional fashion”, there’s what you, specifically, are more accustomed to.
- prepend 3y ago
  > because a lot simply cannot afford replacements or repairs. My kid’s elementary school policy for iPad damage was $100 for the first damage, $250 for the second, $500 for the third. This was problematic for a few reasons: 1) they didn’t have anyone to debug devices in a school of 1000 kids, so any problem was damage and parents were fined; 2) the iPad was several years old and costs $300 to just buy; 3) if the iPad was stolen then the full $500 was due; 4) they wouldn’t provide cases and asked the parents to purchase only specific cases and any other cases were removed. Their approved cases weren’t very good; 5) location tracking was turned on even outside of schools. When I tried to talk with the administration they said something like “this is as good as we can do.” They said that it was mandatory for kids to use these devices. I bought my kid their own iPad refurbed for 289 or something with AppleCare for $7/month and used that for 3 years of elementary school. Arguing with the admin every year when they tried to say this wasn’t allowed.
mikej1000 3y ago
I think they're a problem in universities too. I'm sure I've seen research that suggests students in lectures who take notes on paper get better grades that students who use laptops in lectures.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > I'm sure I've seen research that suggests students in lectures who take notes on paper get better grades that students who use laptops in lectures. Honestly, I hated taking notes in lectures (and considered the necessity for it to be a distraction from paying full attention). On the other hand, there were these students who live-LaTeXed math lectures on their laptops ...
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    "On the other hand, there were these students who live-LaTeXed math lectures on their laptops..." I'd suggest very few could actually do that successfully. First, they'd have to be truly fluent touch typists—that is being able to keep their eyes fully focused on the lecturer and being fully fluent in LaTeX. And I'd suggest that's a very tall order if say the lecture was on math or physics—say on a topic such as the Navier–Stokes equations. Not only would their eyes be focused on the lecturer and what he/she's writing on the blackboard but they'd have to be sufficiently fluent in LaTeX math to enter rows of partial differential equations on-the-fly and be completely wordperfect about it. No doubt there will be a few exceptional people who can perform such a feat but I'd bet the number would be miniscule. Edit: when I was taking lecture notes I'd often resort to transcribing lectures from recordings to get the stuff that I missed or that wasn't clear at the time of the lecture. Unfortunately, back then there were very few video recordings of lectures which meant that transcribing math, physics etc. was essentially out of the question. There were however audio cassette recording of subjects where visuals were less important such as philosophy. Even with these subjects I found that transcribing the audio into coherent notes was timeconsuming and difficult and often it required me to replay sections of the tape over and over. This was worthwhile as it drove the lectures home but it was damn hard work.
  - skydhash 3y ago
hospitalJail 3y ago
>I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools. Woah what a reactionary! No ballpoint pens, right? >2028 the effects of the tech ban were apparent, in mere years, the productivity of this countries students had dropped well below global levels. Graduates the year before were becoming first class citizens as inequality became based on the year you were born.
Beijinger 3y ago
Hey, Tech was banned at my boarding school :-). No electronics. TV, Radio...
hilbert42 3y ago
I agree. Kids don't need these types of concerns and distractions in their formative years. And computers are inherently distracting—as the intrinsic design of modern computers ensures that's the case. Thankfully, my primary education was before computer tech in schools or I'd have been sidetracked by the technology and it's pretty certain I'd have learned much less. Even by that age I was fascinated by electronic stuff and invariably I'd have pull it apart or tested it to destruction. Right, had I had the tech I'd have lost out on two accounts, not only would I have been distracted by it but I'd have likely lost it or rendered it useless by the time exams came around. Not having the compulsory tech necessary for exams would have added further unecessary stress and distraction.
- skydhash 3y ago
  When I was a teenager, my mom bought me a computer. By the end of the first year, you'd think I have a computer workshop in my bedroom, due to various part I was trying to add to the cases. I can't even remember the amount of gadgets I've destroyed trying to take them apart. If you're trying to teach IT to students, have a tech lab. If the students need to watch something, it can be done with a projector.
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    Yeah, right, I reckon we understand one another. As they say 'it takes one to know one'. ;-)
sotix 3y ago
When I was in high school, I got a special exemption to be allowed to use a laptop to take notes because my hand would cramp trying to jot down everything the teacher wanted us to. Once I was at university, everybody was using a laptop. They were incredibly distracting. I now know that I never needed one. If a teacher uses the Socratic method, I learn very effectively as long as the dialogue is engaging. Note taking slows me down and doesn’t allow to me fully process what has been said. I always had to spend a large amount of time reviewing the notes after class and realized how much didn’t soak in when I was taking them. The issue was, far too many teachers would add one random bit of trivia into a quick sentence they said and use that as a question on the next exam. Even if that bit of knowledge wasn’t in the related books or could be naturally deduced by understanding the topic. The best teachers I had didn’t require me to use laptops. I realize that now that I am attending Greek school as an adult and only use a small notepad to take quick notes on something to follow up with later like vocab to add to Anki. A class of 12 engaged in dialogue is far more effective for myself.
pjmlp 3y ago
I really don't get this, as far as I am aware, in Portugal there are still hardly any laptops or tablets in most schools, other than fancy ones for upper class folks. Everyone else is pen and paper, shared computer labs, and home computers shared by all family kids.
- I_like_pigeons 3y ago
  Actually a few years ago schools started lending laptops (which you have to return at the end of the school year), but as far as I remember we never used them in class. I can't quite recall if this was before the covid outbreak, but I think we still had in person classes that year.
- Erratic6576 3y ago
  That’s why poorer countries are thriving in maths literacy according to a report by the OCDE called “computers and learning making the connection” or something like that

Traubenfuchs 3y ago

> Schools + laptops Are there any believable success story for this from involved people (= students+teachers+parents)?

jon-wood 3y ago
Hi. I had fairly severe dyslexia (and it turns out undiagnosed ADHD) in school, I could read fine, but handwriting in particular was hideously slow, to the point where I wasn't able to actually learn much because I was spending all my time laboriously writing things out. Once my parents persuaded the school to let me use an electronic word processor (I hesitate to call it a laptop by modern standards) for anything that involved writing it made the world of difference. As a happy side effect it also had a BASIC interpreter, which I would absolutely use to distract myself in boring lessons. I've been a professional software developer more or less since I left school. Not sure what the lesson is there... give kids laptops but only allow text editors and compilers?
- throwaway71271 3y ago
  > give kids laptops but only allow text editors and compilers one commander x16 per child :)
- hilbert42 3y ago
  "...dyslexia (and it turns out undiagnosed ADHD) in school," "...for anything that involved writing it made the world of difference." No doubt what you say is true but it's odd as research has shown that using a keyboard requires additional cognition and thus usually more is learned when taking handwritten notes specifically because it's less mentally taxing. If I recall there was research to this effect on an HN story in the last week or so. It would be interesting to know why the opposite seems to be so with you.
  - liveoneggs 3y ago
    keyboarding is a common accommodation for dysgraphia
  - jon-wood 3y ago
    The bit I forgot to mention here was that alongside all that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for. That means that I can write without thinking about the mechanical action of doing so at all, which was never the case for handwriting. Possibly given sufficient focus on practicing handwriting that would have worked as well but several years of near constant handwriting in school never got to that point, while 30-60 minutes a day of practice at typing had me able to beat the speed I could handwrite at within a month or two.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      "...that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for." You're very lucky indeed that your parents encouraged you to type, clearly it's put you in good stead. My mother had been a professional typist and stenographer and knew Pitman shorthand to a tee. She could type multiple pages without a single mistake for she learned in the days before wordprocessors and correction fluid—a single mistake would mean retyping the whole page. Also, she worked in a law firm where cross-outs and corrections were just not acceptable. Simply, she had to be accurate and word-perfect every time and she was. Yet at no time did she take the time to teach me to type nor teach me shorthand. It's not as if she wouldn't have done so had she known better but it just wasn't acceptable to teach boys what was then considered women's work. This is one big regret of my life as my typing is at best still scratchy and I do not know shorthand which in hindsight would have been a godsend. I need to correct my point about handwriting and learning. I'm now not sure whether the story was linked from HN or not but it's definitely on Sabine Hossenfelder's Science News YouTube channel here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc

jeroenhd 3y ago

Laptops are pretty useful for writing essays and doing research. It's also good to get some computer experience in, because the younger generation is growing up only knowing smartphones and doing as terrible a job in environments where they need to use computers (offices and such) as the retiring baby boomers are. Saving files using a mouse, and printing documents isn't something you know from birth, and we owe it to our children to teach them some basic computer experience. I can't fathom while you'd use anyone's personal device to take tests, though. What could possibly be taught to a 12 year old that couldn't be tested in the form of a written exam? It's always the tyrannical anti cheat software that turns any good idea into a terrible experience.

lukan 3y ago

"I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools." But can one really hope, to prepare students for life then?

blackhaz 3y ago
We didn't have any tech in school and yet we've turned out just fine, now sitting here and typing this on HN. I'm all for banning tech from schools. Allowing Google to enter the school system has been a crime against our children.
- lakpan 3y ago
  > crime against our children. Sounds a bit hyperbolic. How are kids being hurt by Google specifically?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - blackhaz 3y ago
    Take a read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-021-00599-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-021-00599-4 Not specifically related to Google, but we are making our kids write less, which literally dumbs them down: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264763007_Handwriting_in_early_childhood_education_Current_research_and_future_implications https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264763007_Handwriti... (You can find lots of research on this, there's no controversy here.) Somewhat less of a profound problem is the extreme amount of pollution: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-highlights-problems-of-short-lived-laptops-in-schools/ https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-hi... My kid has brought his third Chromebook in just a few years from school. We are all going to pay for all this, while the big tech generates billions of profits and the whole planet is marching towards tech feudalism.

caldarons 3y ago

As someone who went to a high school (Italy) where in the first two years each student had a laptop they could use in the classroom, I agree that having a computer per student is a bad idea. In my experience, what ended up happening was that pupils who already knew their way around a computer didn't really get any extra benefit from using cmputers in the classroom and those who didn't like using computers hated it even more when forced to write out an assignment on a keyboard as supposed to handwriting. Most importantly though, they were a HUGE distraction. Any time the lesson got boring because the teacher wasn't good or just not good at getting the kids engaged in the lesson (which happened quite often sadly, but that is another discussion) we would all just start playing on the computers. Some kids came to school just to play videogames and barely learned anything. Now, some of these issues (like bad professors, smart kids getting bored because of slow pace of lessons) have always been present in every school all over the world but I do think that having tech in the classroom just makes things worse, as now even those who would have normally followed the lesson are tempted to just turn on their computer and pretend to take notes when really they are playing Candy crush. It's bad enough being a teenager and being bombarded with stimuli from your phone and social media, having that kind of distraction at school just makes things even worse. So yeah, I think tech in school is one of those things that sounds great but usually just back-fires in spectacular ways (imho).

op00to 3y ago
It’s amazing that laptops were the thing that introduced distraction to pupils in school. Not paper football. Not whispering. Not passing notes. Not staring out the window. Not sleeping. Not spending too much time in the bathroom.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  I recall of epic battles with pens turned into blowguns. Making lessons interesting is a lost art, and uninterested pupils will always find a way to distract themselves with what they have at hand, laptops or not.
  - op00to 3y ago

wslh 3y ago

> I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools. If we are talking about high schools and mainly technical high schools banning tech is contrary to the point of the school. I think a balanced view is better: carrying laptops on classes where you need them and also adapt classes if laptop could be beneficial. Even in elementary school, my child has robotics. In general, I think politicians use binary yes/no options because they are lazy and/or incapable of working or thinking harder.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
It seems common to confuse teaching children about technology and having children taught by technology. The former is essential to a modern economy and way of life. The latter is road to laziness, poor mental health and terrible learning outcomes.
- wslh 3y ago
  Agree 100%. The problem is that politics is the slowest and more incompetent mile . And here we are not talking about really complex issues like wars and/or terrorism.
logifail 3y ago
> laptops on classes where you need them Apart from lessons directly about computing and/or technology - of which there may be a handful of hours per week in a regular highschool - the number of subjects which "need a laptop" in high school is vanishingly small. > politicians use binary yes/no options because they are lazy and/or incapable of working or thinking harder Lobbyists don't even use binary. They're always pushing their product.
- kuschku 3y ago
  A lot of natural sciences classes benefit from doing experiments. And those are much easier and more rewarding when you've got probes connected to different parts of the experiment logging their data to a laptop. My old high school used the LabPro/LoggerPro platform for that, and it became a core part of how physics and chemistry was taught. https://www.vernier.com/product/labpro/ https://www.vernier.com/product/labpro/

ho_schi 3y ago

As far as I know Sweden is rolling back[1]large parts of the digitalization at schools. Not just because of cloud usage, maintenance and incompetence. The digital devices harm learning. Sweden will spend 60 million for reintroducing actual books, focus on actual reading and writing (important for learning and motoric ability). I’m not surprised. While I’m sceptic about many positions of Manfred Spitzer [2] (University of Ulm) I’m afraid that he is right in many areas. A tablet is not the tool to discover the world for a child. They need to view, touch, smell and focus on matters. Putting aside that Apple (iPad), Google (Chromebook) and Microsoft (Surface) just want to train child’s to depend on their stuff forever. We can still introduce computers at the age of 12 and the kids will adapt - and teach required basics (control your data, understand technic on high level, touch-typing, how you can access knowledge…and that a lot of companies and people are hostile). [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/sweden-says-back-to-basics-schooling-works-on-paper https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/sweden-says-ba... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Spitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Spitzer

Alifatisk 3y ago
> Sweden is rolling back[1]large parts of the digitalization at schools I hope this becomes a trend! I’ve always hated the idea of being dependent on electronic devices during school.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Actual reading is super important; the letteredness of people has been in decline for decades, and while it's partially to blame on the shift in entertainment preferences, schools de-emphasising reading and understanding in favor of other skills has been a big factor as well. Your remark about the suppliers wanting to get the kids "hooked" on their products isn't new btw, this was happening 20+ years ago already with MS Office and co.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Letteredness = literacy, right?

happytiger 3y ago

7thaccount 3y ago
Nobody is arguing that they shouldn't teach tech at all. When they're talking about bans, they're likely referring to for general classes (math, English, science...etc) and would of course be happy with a computer class that teaches typing, Excel, PPT, and some actual computer/STEM stuff like basic programming. It may sound old fashioned, but books work just as well for most classes with a lot less distraction. Assuming you let your kid watch a little TV or play video games...they're no longer getting 1-2 hours of screen time per day like we did, but rather more like 5-6 hours per day which is likely not healthy. (Story Time) I had a crazy woman teach a computer elective in highschool, but she made sure everyone left the class typing efficiently without looking and we all knew how to use Excel and PPT. It really helped in college engineering and of course in the work force knowing a little Excel. The ppt stuff sounds ludicrous, but I use it a LOT at work as research and analysis is often summarized and presented to less technical stakeholders in that format. TBH, she basically made sure we were experts in the blue collar aspects of computing that office workers everywhere use. She also taught some history of computing and made sure we all knew common computer terminology like what OS, GUI, DOS, RAM, ROM...etc all meant. In hindsight it was a pretty useful class. The weirdest thing in the class...the teacher had a question on the final that asked which book of the Bible was most like the history of computing. All of us 8th-10th graders were absolutely dumbfounded where this bizzare question came from. Apparently the answer was Exodus, but she couldn't explain to us why and indicated it should be obvious if we had seen Pirates of Silicon Valley.
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> If anything, the real issue is that the current school laptops suck. If anything, schools are failing profoundly in preparing kids for a technological world. I would rather claim that this is a preparation for the corporate world where (except for the technology sector) work computers suck and are filled with corporate spyware. :-)
kergonath 3y ago
> If anything, schools are failing profoundly in preparing kids for a technological world. This argument is often made (and also wrt preparing pupils for their professional life). I don’t think it the reasons you imply are right. The problem is that nothing they could use now in school will prepare them for what they will need to use in the future. The software, tools and devices they will need will change as technology keeps evolving. What they need to learn is the basics, how to adapt to a new platform and core OPSEC principles. And they can learn that on pretty much anything. > We need more hackers. I was a kid of the 1990s, I know what you mean. But I also was a hacker. We had access to computers at school, which was great. But we did not have to use them all the time for things that are better done by other means of communication. My kid just spent a couple of hours doing some programming on his school laptop, which is fantastic. What is not is requiring the same laptop to take exams with bullshit spyware and requiring it in the classroom for lectures that would be better without them. Then, they are a distraction and they do not help. > I just spent three hours last night working on spanish homework on a school supplied chromebook with a high schooler, and it was pathetic how bad the UX was, how poorly the laptop performed, and just how painful the entire experience is. Yes, Chromebooks are terrible. They are actually a hindrance more than anything else.

7thaccount 3y ago

My kid had tablets in kindergarten that did the majority of the lessons. It's pretty horrifying in a lot of ways (way too much screen time), but has some advantages. If your kid learns well that way, they can move ahead at their own pace. They do a lot of phonics in my kids class. She finished all her phonics lessons early in the year, so now she just uses that time to read a few chapter book chapters instead that I send with her to school, which is much more relevant than just doing extra phonics anyway (that's another story though).

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

The amount of damage and breakages to these laptops has to be insane. Teenagers yeet their bags, mess with each other's tech, etc. As a school you can't make the parents responsible for damages, because a lot simply cannot afford replacements or repairs. While IT skills are important and should be taught at schools, please do it in the traditional fashion; have a computer lab, make everything abuse resistant, and get a favorable repair / maintenance contract. We have a 15 year old that managed to destroy 3 or 4 laptops and four phones in the span of five years.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
There is no “traditional fashion”, there’s what you, specifically, are more accustomed to.
prepend 3y ago
> because a lot simply cannot afford replacements or repairs. My kid’s elementary school policy for iPad damage was $100 for the first damage, $250 for the second, $500 for the third. This was problematic for a few reasons: 1) they didn’t have anyone to debug devices in a school of 1000 kids, so any problem was damage and parents were fined; 2) the iPad was several years old and costs $300 to just buy; 3) if the iPad was stolen then the full $500 was due; 4) they wouldn’t provide cases and asked the parents to purchase only specific cases and any other cases were removed. Their approved cases weren’t very good; 5) location tracking was turned on even outside of schools. When I tried to talk with the administration they said something like “this is as good as we can do.” They said that it was mandatory for kids to use these devices. I bought my kid their own iPad refurbed for 289 or something with AppleCare for $7/month and used that for 3 years of elementary school. Arguing with the admin every year when they tried to say this wasn’t allowed.

mikej1000 3y ago

I think they're a problem in universities too. I'm sure I've seen research that suggests students in lectures who take notes on paper get better grades that students who use laptops in lectures.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> I'm sure I've seen research that suggests students in lectures who take notes on paper get better grades that students who use laptops in lectures. Honestly, I hated taking notes in lectures (and considered the necessity for it to be a distraction from paying full attention). On the other hand, there were these students who live-LaTeXed math lectures on their laptops ...
- hilbert42 3y ago
  "On the other hand, there were these students who live-LaTeXed math lectures on their laptops..." I'd suggest very few could actually do that successfully. First, they'd have to be truly fluent touch typists—that is being able to keep their eyes fully focused on the lecturer and being fully fluent in LaTeX. And I'd suggest that's a very tall order if say the lecture was on math or physics—say on a topic such as the Navier–Stokes equations. Not only would their eyes be focused on the lecturer and what he/she's writing on the blackboard but they'd have to be sufficiently fluent in LaTeX math to enter rows of partial differential equations on-the-fly and be completely wordperfect about it. No doubt there will be a few exceptional people who can perform such a feat but I'd bet the number would be miniscule. Edit: when I was taking lecture notes I'd often resort to transcribing lectures from recordings to get the stuff that I missed or that wasn't clear at the time of the lecture. Unfortunately, back then there were very few video recordings of lectures which meant that transcribing math, physics etc. was essentially out of the question. There were however audio cassette recording of subjects where visuals were less important such as philosophy. Even with these subjects I found that transcribing the audio into coherent notes was timeconsuming and difficult and often it required me to replay sections of the tape over and over. This was worthwhile as it drove the lectures home but it was damn hard work.
- skydhash 3y ago

hospitalJail 3y ago

>I will honestly prefer to just ban all tech from schools. Woah what a reactionary! No ballpoint pens, right? >2028 the effects of the tech ban were apparent, in mere years, the productivity of this countries students had dropped well below global levels. Graduates the year before were becoming first class citizens as inequality became based on the year you were born.

Beijinger 3y ago

Hey, Tech was banned at my boarding school :-). No electronics. TV, Radio...

hilbert42 3y ago

I agree. Kids don't need these types of concerns and distractions in their formative years. And computers are inherently distracting—as the intrinsic design of modern computers ensures that's the case. Thankfully, my primary education was before computer tech in schools or I'd have been sidetracked by the technology and it's pretty certain I'd have learned much less. Even by that age I was fascinated by electronic stuff and invariably I'd have pull it apart or tested it to destruction. Right, had I had the tech I'd have lost out on two accounts, not only would I have been distracted by it but I'd have likely lost it or rendered it useless by the time exams came around. Not having the compulsory tech necessary for exams would have added further unecessary stress and distraction.

skydhash 3y ago
When I was a teenager, my mom bought me a computer. By the end of the first year, you'd think I have a computer workshop in my bedroom, due to various part I was trying to add to the cases. I can't even remember the amount of gadgets I've destroyed trying to take them apart. If you're trying to teach IT to students, have a tech lab. If the students need to watch something, it can be done with a projector.
- hilbert42 3y ago
  Yeah, right, I reckon we understand one another. As they say 'it takes one to know one'. ;-)

sotix 3y ago

When I was in high school, I got a special exemption to be allowed to use a laptop to take notes because my hand would cramp trying to jot down everything the teacher wanted us to. Once I was at university, everybody was using a laptop. They were incredibly distracting. I now know that I never needed one. If a teacher uses the Socratic method, I learn very effectively as long as the dialogue is engaging. Note taking slows me down and doesn’t allow to me fully process what has been said. I always had to spend a large amount of time reviewing the notes after class and realized how much didn’t soak in when I was taking them. The issue was, far too many teachers would add one random bit of trivia into a quick sentence they said and use that as a question on the next exam. Even if that bit of knowledge wasn’t in the related books or could be naturally deduced by understanding the topic. The best teachers I had didn’t require me to use laptops. I realize that now that I am attending Greek school as an adult and only use a small notepad to take quick notes on something to follow up with later like vocab to add to Anki. A class of 12 engaged in dialogue is far more effective for myself.

pjmlp 3y ago

I really don't get this, as far as I am aware, in Portugal there are still hardly any laptops or tablets in most schools, other than fancy ones for upper class folks. Everyone else is pen and paper, shared computer labs, and home computers shared by all family kids.

I_like_pigeons 3y ago
Actually a few years ago schools started lending laptops (which you have to return at the end of the school year), but as far as I remember we never used them in class. I can't quite recall if this was before the covid outbreak, but I think we still had in person classes that year.
Erratic6576 3y ago
That’s why poorer countries are thriving in maths literacy according to a report by the OCDE called “computers and learning making the connection” or something like that