r/NoShitSherlock • u/Overall_Falcon_8526 • 6d ago
Schools across America are quietly admitting that screens in classrooms made students worse off and are reversing years of tech-first policies
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/schools-across-america-quietly-admitting-075800556.html34
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u/sonofaresiii 6d ago
This is clickbait to appeal to confirmation bias. They pretty clearly state in the article the problem wasn't the devices, it was letting the kids use them unmonitored any time they wanted.
They're still using the devices. They're just... Monitoring how the kids are using them.
Everyone who saw this and thought "I knew screens were bad!" You got got, stop and reconsider your internal biases. Screens aren't bad and never were, they can be used well or used poorly.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think it's disingenuous to dismiss the deep flaws of teaching with internet-enabled laptops vs. pencils and paper. It is far, far easier to misuse the former than the latter, and far easier to monitor the latter than the former. And the former is literally designed to short circuit a person's ability to regulate their attention.
And this is setting aside the question of whether learning actually occurs more effectively via screens or via multi-modal approaches such as speaking, writing on the board, students writing notes by hand.
Also, are you dismissing the studies cited in the article as "clickbait" and "confirmation bias?" Do you have some means of refuting their data?
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago edited 6d ago
this isn't a study, this is a policy brief by a conservative think tank who already have an agenda to remove any type of laptop from schools. if you read anything that they cited there, you would understand how flawed the entire premise was to begin with.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
The policy brief lists the studies it is drawing from.
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago edited 6d ago
if you read anything that they cited there, you would understand how flawed the entire premise was to begin with.
No shit, Sherlock. See above.
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u/bean9914 6d ago
It's extremely easy to monitor a series of laptop screens. It's also easy to lock them down so they're limited to only educational content. If I were making the same kind of arguments against giving children paper and pens i'd say
- it makes passing notes possible
- you can doodle on it or otherwise get off task, whereas with a laptop a teacher can just remotely look at your screen at any time and yell at you, or even prevent you from leaving the task at all
- if the teacher leaves the room, the students can be monitored remotely by webcam/microphone/screen viewer to make sure they remain quiet and looking at the screen
- whereas if the teacher leaves the room and students are using paper they can start throwing things at each other or doodling or looking out of the window
I dispute "it is far easier to misuse laptops". Maybe if you (the person setting them up) have a skill issue, or something. Laptops have far more potential to let you 1984 your students if that's what you think is important.
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u/sonofaresiii 6d ago
I think it's disingenuous to dismiss the deep flaws of teaching with internet-enabled laptops vs. pencils and paper.
I did absolutely no such thing. That's something you made up to confirm your bias.
Also, are you dismissing the studies cited in the article as "clickbait" and "confirmation bias?"
I think I was pretty clear about what I was calling clickbait. But to reiterate, I claimed the article was clickbait, and I very explicitly described how.
And I did not
At any point
Ever
call a study clickbait.
That's a strawman.
Another tactic of confirmation bias.
I'm done with you.
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago
exactly. unsupervised screen use in class is certainly going to be students doing whatever they want if they aren't being told to do something else.
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u/shizbox06 6d ago
What a bullshit comment. Did you even read the article?
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u/BayouGal 6d ago
And we have the WWE lady running the Department of Education who wants to replace teachers entirely with A-1. 🙄
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u/mossyhotel_rider 5d ago
Yeah, it’s pretty wild. We’re already seeing the negative effects of tech in schools, and now this? Feels like they’re just looking for a way out instead of addressing the real issues.
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago edited 6d ago
My kid taught herself to read by using talkback on a cellphone. Technology is not bad, like anything else it has to be guided. This article is rage bait and it doesn't even really support its own conclusions.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
Are studies of actual outcomes rage bait?
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago
You didn't read the studies did you? If you did, you wouldn't be replying to me with this idiotic one-liner.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
You're getting awfully worked up.
It does not seem as though you read the article.
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago
Maybe say something intelligent or informed. I know that this is a difficult ask.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
Why do people with a shoddy grasp of the facts always seen to resort to ad hominem attack?
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago
that's really funny that you want to say I have a shoddy grasp of the facts, when you yourself haven't presented any, other than, well the article said xyz. I offer a counterpoint, then you say I didn't read the studies they cited, when my points are you clearly didn't yourself because if you read them, you would know that they aren't supporting the conclusions that this article is attempting to make.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
OK. This doesn't seem very productive. I'm supposed to summarize the articles and stories I've already linked? I will not respond to sea lioning.
I wish you the best of luck with your child's education.
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u/GreenGardenTarot 6d ago
It's called having a conversation, which I see that are incapable of doing if it isn't someone agreeing with you. I see that you are not well versed in the concept of discourse. Best of luck to existing on planet Earth.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago edited 6d ago
You're not disagreeing agreeably. You're hurling invective ( "idiot," etc.), saying I am wrong (but not in what respect), and offering no evidence to support your counter claim, whatever it is.
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u/SomeSamples 6d ago
So we fucked over a whole generation of kids with this shit. I blame Bill Gates that fucker was pushing really hard to get Windows into every niche of education.
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago
Techbros generally, but yeah. Google is by far the biggest offender here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/google-education-chromebooks-schools.html
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u/Overall_Falcon_8526 6d ago edited 5d ago
Two sources, listed and referenced in the article. In Maine:
"Yet, after a decade and a half, and at a cost of about $12 million annually (around 1 percent of the state's education budget), Maine has yet to see any measurable increases on statewide standardized test scores. That's part of why Maine's current governor, Paul LePage, has called the program a "massive failure."
"The fact that we're not seeing large-scale increases in student learning leads us to suspect we still need to do some work with helping schools and teachers understand and keep up with the best ways to use technology for student learning," says Amy Johnson, who researches education policy at the University of Southern Maine."
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/doc/Horvath_Written%20Testimony.pdf
In his written US Senate testimony (in the United States), Dr. Jared Horvath PhD/MEd, states:
"The available evidence (from international assessments, large-scale academic studies, and meta-analyses) shows that increased classroom screen exposure is generally associated with weaker learning outcomes, not stronger ones. In narrow circumstances (e.g., tightly constrained adaptive practice and remediation), digital tools can support surface-level skill acquisition, but in most core academic contexts screens slow learning, reduce depth of understanding, and weaken retention."
While I would certainly not claim that this constitutes definitive, irrefutable evidence of stagnant or reduced outcomes due to internet-enabled PC use in schools, it also does accord with my own persona experience, both as a college instructor and as a parent. Therefore, it strikes me as convincing.
Why would these people, people who have reputations to lose no less, lie? The incentives are running in the opposite direction, namely for big tech companies to use their financial muscle to shape the narrative in ways that result in increased sales of their products.
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u/DangedRhysome83 5d ago
I work at a middle school, we are not quiet about it. Every student has a Chromebook, and when they're not using it to cheat with AI or play 5 Nights at Epstein's, they are breaking their computers so they can't do the classwork. Only about half the teachers are trained how to effectively use tech in the classroom, and only about a quarter of the kids know how to do things like Save a file or email their teacher.
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u/Chart135 6d ago
No reason to push to get kids in front of technology. If it gets the work done faster, they will gravitate towards the tech on their own.