6 ms·

There is an incredible pressure on a lot of public facing endeavors to include digital, no matter whether it makes any sense at all or not. Take education, for

by kleiba 1y ago

There is an incredible pressure on a lot of public facing endeavors to include digital, no matter whether it makes any sense at all or not. Take education, for instance - if it weren't such an important topic, it would be almost comical to observe how our schools are trying to jump through hoops to cram more IT into the classroom. (I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again.) But it's not about what makes sense. It's about prestige, and about the ability to tell everyone "look at us, how forward we are!". This seems very clear to me, for instance, by the fact that the year 7 comp sci classes they teach in our local high school have what on their curriculum? Yep, that's right, you guessed it: AI. Because that's apparently the absolute basic CS that every student should start with these days. Education is only one example, of course. But it's really creeping into everything. That museums have screen everywhere is no surprise. After all, flashing screen surely release more endorphins than non-interactive physical exhibits, so if you want to attract young folks, the pressure is on.

serial_dev 1y ago
I don’t know what exactly they teach about AI, but trying out different AI tools could be very important, it’s a great learning tool if you want it to be. It can help students learn math, history, programming…
- prerok 1y ago
  Indeed, but it's more like computer literacy not comp sci. We also had a course in "computers" in high school. We had to know by heart the contents of "File" and "Edit" menus for Paint in Win3.1. Windows95 was just came out that year, so naturally the curiculum had not adapted yet. Anyway, guess how useful that was. The only one student who knew how to program got an F in the course :) It was, of course, a way to teach nontechs how to use computers, as misguided as the material was. So, in that light, starting with AI makes sense. Would be nice to also include a bit more technical course, but apparently knowing where and when a poet was born is more important.
  - necovek 1y ago
    Usually, knowing where and when a poet or author is born does matter — it sets the cultural context for what and how the author is writing about.
ffsm8 1y ago
> Scandinavia though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again While I personally suspect that social media and by extension phones are detrimental: what you're writing here is opinion, not fact. Just like adding tech was an experiment which seems to have been accepted all over, removing the tech again is - at least to my knowledge - in experiment phase, too. And because a real experiment would take roughly 12-20 years (students performance from start to finish, until they're gainfully employed)... Neither of these approached have really been validated. It's all speculation, because there are so many other reasons that could explain the issues we currently have in our schools And frankly - even though I honestly believe that social media is bad for them - I sincerely think its nowhere close to being the main reason for dropping performance, inability to take responsibilities or whatever else people are saying about the current children.
- hungmung 1y ago
  Relevant: https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/26/the-mere-presence-of-your-smartphone-reduces-brain-power/ https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/26/the-mere-presence-of-your...
- conductr 1y ago
  > removing the tech again is - at least to my knowledge - in experiment phase, too. Do you not consider the period prior to the tech? It was a significant amount of time.
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    but so much has changed since My hole point was that you cannot isolate it to phones. Phones probably are net negative, but even if you removed them: our society has changed and wherever the removal will be positive for their development is hard to isolate, hence it's purely based on opinion
PaulHoule 1y ago
To be devil's advocate it is really practical to develop and roll out digital experiences. You can be a lot more creative about it than the "big tablet" experience you have at McDonald's. Some friends of mine have built experiential art installations that have things like a custom coin-op video game, Pepper's Ghost style displays, a "time machine" experience using video projectors, etc. I'd love to be able to sell location-based XR experiences to museums: like you go to the paleontology museum and put on a headset and now the museum is a mixed reality Jurassic Park. For that matter I'd love to set up a multiplayer VR park in a big clean span space. There are a lot of difficulties like the cheap headsets don't really have the right tracking capabilities for a seamless location-based experience [1] plus getting together and paying a team which can deliver that sort of thing. A museum with really robust funding could probably afford an XR experience and subsidize development that transfers to other museums but I can't see the economics working for turning an old American Eagle at the mall into a VR experience park: malls have unrealistic ideas about their spaces can earn and most of them have posts in them that player would crash into. [1] It already knows where it is the instant you put the headset on and it doesn't have to retrain like the MQ3 would.
- quantified 1y ago
  If our "real world" is screens, maybe. I really hate to think that this is becoming the case, but it is happening and this only hastens it. The article was about real analogs or actual world objects. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is a fantastic example, as is the Field Museum there. Kids are full of screen time already. Is that all there is?
  - stockresearcher 1y ago
    The Museum of Science and Industry and the Field Museum are both well-funded, so they better be held to a high standard :) They also both host overnights - bring your sleeping bag and pajamas and spend the evening with tons of activities, sleeping among the exhibits, and a morning breakfast. Have done both with my kids :) https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/events/science-snoozeum/ https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/events/science... https://www.fieldmuseum.org/our-events/dozin-with-the-dinos https://www.fieldmuseum.org/our-events/dozin-with-the-dinos
CrazyStat 1y ago
My wife and I toured our neighborhood public elementary school a couple years ago. Almost every classroom we passed the kids were staring at their chromebooks, even in the art room—digital art, I guess [1]. In the music room the kids were sitting at rows of desks with electronic keyboards and headphones while the teacher sat at the front of the class and gave them instructions through a microphone (to be heard through the headphones, I guess). It was incredibly depressing. We decided to send our kids elsewhere. [1] Nothing against digital art, but I strongly feel young kids should be working with actual physical materials.
- Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago
  When my kid was going to start preschool, we went to see a relatively posh private school in the neighborhood. The first thing they showed was a photo of a 3-year-old kid solving a jigsaw puzzle in a big touchscreen. A jigsaw puzzle, you know, that thing where 80% of the challenge for a kid that age is physically inserting the pieces the right way. In a touchscreen! They also boasted about not having any books until age 8 or something like that, I don't remember exactly. We left appalled. We sent him to a public school instead, where they use screens much less (although they do use them, sadly) and they have books. I don't know to what extent this is a voluntary choice or just because they have less money to buy gadgets, but the result is better anyway.
  - accrual 1y ago
    I wonder if there would be a market for schools or daycares offering "pre-digital" style classrooms with emphasis on books, blocks, puzzles, art, outdoor time, and policies to limit phones/screens. On the other hand, these kids will eventually end up in a world saturated with displays and maybe even AR, so there's some argument for getting them involved with digital stuff at some point.
    - jkestner 1y ago
      I mean, that’s Montessori. Plenty of opportunities to get exposure to digital stuff outside of school.
xg15 1y ago
> the year 7 comp sci classes they teach in our local high school have what on their curriculum? Yep, that's right, you guessed it: AI. Because that's apparently the absolute basic CS that every student should start with these days. I think, if you went back to the origin of the term "AI" and tried to teach an introduction to the very fundamentals, this could actually be a fun and inspiring class - one that might not even need a lot of computer knowledge. There are a number of board games with "self-playing" antagonists that are governed through clever sets of game rules. There is also the historical predecessor of computer science, cybernetics, that dealt with self-governing analogous control systems, like thermostats. Finally, there are the classical pathfinding algorithms (Depth-First/Breadth-First, Dijkstra, A*) which I still think are some of the most "bang for the buck" algorithms in terms of "intelligent-looking" behavior vs simplicity of the algorithm. All that stuff could be engaging for high school students in the author's "hands-on" way. All that of course if the "AI" class is really about giving a broad introduction to the field, and not just "we have to put ChatGPT into the curriculum somehow". > After all, flashing screen surely release more endorphins than non-interactive physical exhibits The irony is that this might not even be true. In the article, the author observed that the physical exhibits were much more interesting to the kids than the screens.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Another funny option could be to have the AI class be a linear algebra class.
  - moi2388 1y ago
    Nothing funnier than tricking teens into liking math
    - fxtentacle 1y ago
      Show them Red Faction (the video game) and then explain that all the destruction is calculated using binary space partitioning and that all they need for making similar games is to accurately calculate the intersection of planes, lines and points. Add a few linear forces and numerical integration and there you have your Trojan horse for getting kids hooked.
ryandrake 1y ago
I feel like half the products the tech industry comes out with aren't really useful, but they exist because of this performative trend-following. Competitor has a mobile app, we have to have a mobile app. Harvard business review says blockchain is big, we need to have blockchain. Our CEO's investor buddy said AI is the next big thing, we need to jam AI in or product.
- thw_9a83c 1y ago
  This has been an increasing problem. People, companies, and organizations implement things not because they make sense or benefit someone. They do it because they need to follow the trend.
  - zitsarethecure 1y ago
    Absolutely. RTO mandates. Blanket AI adoption for developers. All these asinine trends done solely to make executives feel like they are still relevant.
  - tomaskafka 1y ago
    That’s because the buyers are no longer connected to their own needs, and instead are easily swayed to buy trend.
- coffeefirst 1y ago
  And it seems to be accelerating. We made a lot of stupid shit in the 2010s, but at least it had a user in mind. There seems to be this new, pure disdain coming from the top: we will invest a fortune in this thing, and anyone who doesn’t embrace our vision is a Luddite. It will not end well.
redbell 1y ago
> I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia, though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again. Yes, Sweden was doing so as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841
Aeolun 1y ago
Honestly, getting a class on AI and its dangers is probably a perfectly reasonable thing to have in your elementary school right now.
tomaskafka 1y ago
I believe it’s rather - schools being pressured to do “something” but being clueless about how education works - IT vendors exploiting this and happily selling them piles of digital something The same cycle happens on political levels - “I know nothing about education, but I guess screens mean progress because everyone (= IT vendors) says so, so let’s give schools money earmarked for screens. And of course the IT vendors happily support it by marketing and bribes.
LeonM 1y ago
I volunteer for a historical museum about transportation (mainly steam engines/trains) I was recently approached if I could create an 'interactive video game' to use in the educational corner. I politely refused, of course, but I did ask why we'd even want that. The reason was simple: we receive government funding to do 'educational stuff', and kids like computer games, right? Having employees (or volunteers in our case) to educate visitors during all opening hours is a massive challenge for most museums, so an interactive screen/game sounds like the logical solution to ensure the funding is approved each year again. I hear the same thing from other musea that we collaborate with. Reality is that these systems are broken more often than not. Typically designed on a budget by an external developer, who is no longer employed or paid to maintain it. Employees/volunteers don't understand how the system works, so the screen just stays off.
monkeyelite 1y ago
In my high school there as a mediocre science teacher who made an effort to do all kinds of technology gimmicks: computer presentations, recording audio, getting special equipment. It felt like a massive distraction and waste of time. This teacher won all kinds of teaching awards from district, state, etc. The administration loved him. even teaching favors the promoters over substance.

by kleiba 1y ago

serial_dev 1y ago

I don’t know what exactly they teach about AI, but trying out different AI tools could be very important, it’s a great learning tool if you want it to be. It can help students learn math, history, programming…

prerok 1y ago
Indeed, but it's more like computer literacy not comp sci. We also had a course in "computers" in high school. We had to know by heart the contents of "File" and "Edit" menus for Paint in Win3.1. Windows95 was just came out that year, so naturally the curiculum had not adapted yet. Anyway, guess how useful that was. The only one student who knew how to program got an F in the course :) It was, of course, a way to teach nontechs how to use computers, as misguided as the material was. So, in that light, starting with AI makes sense. Would be nice to also include a bit more technical course, but apparently knowing where and when a poet was born is more important.
- necovek 1y ago
  Usually, knowing where and when a poet or author is born does matter — it sets the cultural context for what and how the author is writing about.

ffsm8 1y ago

> Scandinavia though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again While I personally suspect that social media and by extension phones are detrimental: what you're writing here is opinion, not fact. Just like adding tech was an experiment which seems to have been accepted all over, removing the tech again is - at least to my knowledge - in experiment phase, too. And because a real experiment would take roughly 12-20 years (students performance from start to finish, until they're gainfully employed)... Neither of these approached have really been validated. It's all speculation, because there are so many other reasons that could explain the issues we currently have in our schools And frankly - even though I honestly believe that social media is bad for them - I sincerely think its nowhere close to being the main reason for dropping performance, inability to take responsibilities or whatever else people are saying about the current children.

hungmung 1y ago
Relevant: https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/26/the-mere-presence-of-your-smartphone-reduces-brain-power/ https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/26/the-mere-presence-of-your...
conductr 1y ago
> removing the tech again is - at least to my knowledge - in experiment phase, too. Do you not consider the period prior to the tech? It was a significant amount of time.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  but so much has changed since My hole point was that you cannot isolate it to phones. Phones probably are net negative, but even if you removed them: our society has changed and wherever the removal will be positive for their development is hard to isolate, hence it's purely based on opinion

PaulHoule 1y ago

To be devil's advocate it is really practical to develop and roll out digital experiences. You can be a lot more creative about it than the "big tablet" experience you have at McDonald's. Some friends of mine have built experiential art installations that have things like a custom coin-op video game, Pepper's Ghost style displays, a "time machine" experience using video projectors, etc. I'd love to be able to sell location-based XR experiences to museums: like you go to the paleontology museum and put on a headset and now the museum is a mixed reality Jurassic Park. For that matter I'd love to set up a multiplayer VR park in a big clean span space. There are a lot of difficulties like the cheap headsets don't really have the right tracking capabilities for a seamless location-based experience [1] plus getting together and paying a team which can deliver that sort of thing. A museum with really robust funding could probably afford an XR experience and subsidize development that transfers to other museums but I can't see the economics working for turning an old American Eagle at the mall into a VR experience park: malls have unrealistic ideas about their spaces can earn and most of them have posts in them that player would crash into. [1] It already knows where it is the instant you put the headset on and it doesn't have to retrain like the MQ3 would.

quantified 1y ago
If our "real world" is screens, maybe. I really hate to think that this is becoming the case, but it is happening and this only hastens it. The article was about real analogs or actual world objects. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is a fantastic example, as is the Field Museum there. Kids are full of screen time already. Is that all there is?
- stockresearcher 1y ago
  The Museum of Science and Industry and the Field Museum are both well-funded, so they better be held to a high standard :) They also both host overnights - bring your sleeping bag and pajamas and spend the evening with tons of activities, sleeping among the exhibits, and a morning breakfast. Have done both with my kids :) https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/events/science-snoozeum/ https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/events/science... https://www.fieldmuseum.org/our-events/dozin-with-the-dinos https://www.fieldmuseum.org/our-events/dozin-with-the-dinos

CrazyStat 1y ago

My wife and I toured our neighborhood public elementary school a couple years ago. Almost every classroom we passed the kids were staring at their chromebooks, even in the art room—digital art, I guess [1]. In the music room the kids were sitting at rows of desks with electronic keyboards and headphones while the teacher sat at the front of the class and gave them instructions through a microphone (to be heard through the headphones, I guess). It was incredibly depressing. We decided to send our kids elsewhere. [1] Nothing against digital art, but I strongly feel young kids should be working with actual physical materials.

Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago
When my kid was going to start preschool, we went to see a relatively posh private school in the neighborhood. The first thing they showed was a photo of a 3-year-old kid solving a jigsaw puzzle in a big touchscreen. A jigsaw puzzle, you know, that thing where 80% of the challenge for a kid that age is physically inserting the pieces the right way. In a touchscreen! They also boasted about not having any books until age 8 or something like that, I don't remember exactly. We left appalled. We sent him to a public school instead, where they use screens much less (although they do use them, sadly) and they have books. I don't know to what extent this is a voluntary choice or just because they have less money to buy gadgets, but the result is better anyway.
- accrual 1y ago
  I wonder if there would be a market for schools or daycares offering "pre-digital" style classrooms with emphasis on books, blocks, puzzles, art, outdoor time, and policies to limit phones/screens. On the other hand, these kids will eventually end up in a world saturated with displays and maybe even AR, so there's some argument for getting them involved with digital stuff at some point.
  - jkestner 1y ago
    I mean, that’s Montessori. Plenty of opportunities to get exposure to digital stuff outside of school.

xg15 1y ago

> the year 7 comp sci classes they teach in our local high school have what on their curriculum? Yep, that's right, you guessed it: AI. Because that's apparently the absolute basic CS that every student should start with these days. I think, if you went back to the origin of the term "AI" and tried to teach an introduction to the very fundamentals, this could actually be a fun and inspiring class - one that might not even need a lot of computer knowledge. There are a number of board games with "self-playing" antagonists that are governed through clever sets of game rules. There is also the historical predecessor of computer science, cybernetics, that dealt with self-governing analogous control systems, like thermostats. Finally, there are the classical pathfinding algorithms (Depth-First/Breadth-First, Dijkstra, A*) which I still think are some of the most "bang for the buck" algorithms in terms of "intelligent-looking" behavior vs simplicity of the algorithm. All that stuff could be engaging for high school students in the author's "hands-on" way. All that of course if the "AI" class is really about giving a broad introduction to the field, and not just "we have to put ChatGPT into the curriculum somehow". > After all, flashing screen surely release more endorphins than non-interactive physical exhibits The irony is that this might not even be true. In the article, the author observed that the physical exhibits were much more interesting to the kids than the screens.

bee_rider 1y ago
Another funny option could be to have the AI class be a linear algebra class.
- moi2388 1y ago
  Nothing funnier than tricking teens into liking math
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    Show them Red Faction (the video game) and then explain that all the destruction is calculated using binary space partitioning and that all they need for making similar games is to accurately calculate the intersection of planes, lines and points. Add a few linear forces and numerical integration and there you have your Trojan horse for getting kids hooked.

ryandrake 1y ago

I feel like half the products the tech industry comes out with aren't really useful, but they exist because of this performative trend-following. Competitor has a mobile app, we have to have a mobile app. Harvard business review says blockchain is big, we need to have blockchain. Our CEO's investor buddy said AI is the next big thing, we need to jam AI in or product.

thw_9a83c 1y ago
This has been an increasing problem. People, companies, and organizations implement things not because they make sense or benefit someone. They do it because they need to follow the trend.
- zitsarethecure 1y ago
  Absolutely. RTO mandates. Blanket AI adoption for developers. All these asinine trends done solely to make executives feel like they are still relevant.
- tomaskafka 1y ago
  That’s because the buyers are no longer connected to their own needs, and instead are easily swayed to buy trend.
coffeefirst 1y ago
And it seems to be accelerating. We made a lot of stupid shit in the 2010s, but at least it had a user in mind. There seems to be this new, pure disdain coming from the top: we will invest a fortune in this thing, and anyone who doesn’t embrace our vision is a Luddite. It will not end well.

redbell 1y ago

> I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia, though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again. Yes, Sweden was doing so as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841

Aeolun 1y ago

Honestly, getting a class on AI and its dangers is probably a perfectly reasonable thing to have in your elementary school right now.

tomaskafka 1y ago

I believe it’s rather - schools being pressured to do “something” but being clueless about how education works - IT vendors exploiting this and happily selling them piles of digital something The same cycle happens on political levels - “I know nothing about education, but I guess screens mean progress because everyone (= IT vendors) says so, so let’s give schools money earmarked for screens. And of course the IT vendors happily support it by marketing and bribes.

LeonM 1y ago

I volunteer for a historical museum about transportation (mainly steam engines/trains) I was recently approached if I could create an 'interactive video game' to use in the educational corner. I politely refused, of course, but I did ask why we'd even want that. The reason was simple: we receive government funding to do 'educational stuff', and kids like computer games, right? Having employees (or volunteers in our case) to educate visitors during all opening hours is a massive challenge for most museums, so an interactive screen/game sounds like the logical solution to ensure the funding is approved each year again. I hear the same thing from other musea that we collaborate with. Reality is that these systems are broken more often than not. Typically designed on a budget by an external developer, who is no longer employed or paid to maintain it. Employees/volunteers don't understand how the system works, so the screen just stays off.

monkeyelite 1y ago

In my high school there as a mediocre science teacher who made an effort to do all kinds of technology gimmicks: computer presentations, recording audio, getting special equipment. It felt like a massive distraction and waste of time. This teacher won all kinds of teaching awards from district, state, etc. The administration loved him. even teaching favors the promoters over substance.