Four years ago, the Hechinger Report described a third-grade class in an affluent suburb of New York City where children spend 75% of the day on their iPads.
Is this the future?
It is not a cost-saver, since there is still one teacher and a class of 20+ students. In most tech-infused projections, this is called “personalized learning,” and it is pitched as a way to cut costs by increasing class sizes.
At Governor Cuomo’s urging, New York passed a $2 billion bond issue to pay for new technology in the classroom. Districts on Long Island, pride themselves on their adoption of the latest technology. Technology and STEM are the rage.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Incredible to actually be requiring children that age to use that much screen time. Even kids who aren’t allowed to use phones during school hours manage to cram in hours of screen time after school. These kids in Mineola must be averaging 8-10 hours of screen time a day. Really sad.
“These kids in Mineola must be averaging 8-10 hours of
screen time a day.”
Just think with a little push they can catch up with their parents.
That’s 8 to 10 hours during which they are not conversing, socializing, playing, thinking, creating, or wondering. Instead they are being anesthetized into intellectual and emotional submission. The Silicon Age may be inflicting more harm than good.
Re: “their parents,” I average about 8 hours a day on my phone, according to the phone’s Screen Time analytics. It’s horrifying.
FLERP!: I have a cheap prepaid phone which I only use for emergencies. I do not belong to any social groups.
However, I spend plenty of time on my laptop…reading the news, emails, quizzes, jokes, etc. I do not want an iPhone because when I leave the house I don’t want to be bothered by looking at a phone for more messages.
I am astounded that during the Chicago Symphony concert breaks, the audience breaks out their cell phones. Good grief. For most of history nobody needed to look at phones. Why has that garbage become so important now?
I go out to lunch with friends who have to answer their phone. Why?
On the other hand, I almost never “answer” my phone. I’ll answer if my kids are calling. But 95% of all calls are from robots these days. More efficient to just let voicemail sort it out.
This article is 4 years old, so those kids must be in 7th or 8th grade by now. It would be really interesting to check in on them to see whether they continued learning with mostly iPads or things changed.
I think there is a role for tech in education but in limited ways. My kid took a middle school math class that was almost all on iPad. The teacher gave a lesson, but then it seemed (from a parents’ perspective) that the students did problems and work for the rest of the time on the iPad. The teacher went around and helped students who needed it.
I will note that my kid almost never had math homework during that year. None! The work was done in class. That was almost unheard of in middle school.
Gates finances the association of public employees who assigned themselves the role of increasing digital learning and fostering public-private partnerships. The association has representatives from all 50 states. What does betrayal of citizens, students and the common good for the benefit of anti-democracy tech tyrants look like?
SETDA is the association.
Every tech-pushing organization has Gates money, as does Edweek, which is constantly promoting Ed tech.
The CEO of Education Post was in the Fall 2019 Pahara Institute crew.
Education Post Board of Directors- Arne Duncan, Peter Cunningham, Lillian Lowery, Sydney Chaffee, Marc Sternberg from the Walton Family Foundation and Russlyn Ali from the Emerson Collective.
They support “strong” charter schools and school accountability.
The Education Post CEO is Chris Stewart who tweets as Citizen Stewart.
Curious about the pay scale for Post’s management.
All that money for iPads which could have been better spent. Think of the opportunities lost. All they got was a bunch of websites.
Billions spent and all I got were lousy websites — not even a t shirt!
“After several students depart for music class, those left behind alternate between iPads and paper to solve problems about rectangles and the properties of multiplication.”
Why are only several students in this third grade departing for music class? [Retired music teacher wants to know.]
This teacher was brought up on tech. I’ve read that students at first are interested but then get bored. These are high achieving students. To me it just seems wrong. These kids are only in third grade. Won’t there be a huge burnout by middle school or high school?
I wonder what will happen to these children’s eyes after hours and hours and years of looking at a screen.
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Web MD:
These days, many of us have jobs that require us to stare at computer screens for hours at a time. That can put a real strain on your eyes.
Eye problems caused by computer use fall under the heading computer vision syndrome (CVS). It isn’t one specific problem. Instead, it includes a whole range of eye strain and discomfort. Research shows that between 50% and 90% of people who work at a computer screen have at least some symptoms.
Working adults aren’t the only ones affected. Kids who stare at tablets or use computers during the day at school can have issues, too, especially if the lighting and their posture are less than ideal.
Technology is only a small piece of the puzzle and should be treated as such. No wonder kids grow up to be adults without the ability to think for themselves. (as evidenced by the last presidential election)
I’ve been teaching almost 30 years and I think I do a pretty good job at it. What’s more I teach computer science so that’s as techy as you get.
The only tech I actually want in my classroom is a projector for a computer. Outside of class is email or something similar so that as a class we can communicate and to help foster community.
Given the choice of a piece of chalk and a chalkboard or all the tech in the world, I’d go with the chalk.
Dallas Dance ushered in Lighthouse in Baltimore County, MD several years ago. Now, the county is walking back on all of this technology because the parents have had enough. My 2 children were in the IPad pilot program (Howard Co MD) in their MS and it was a disaster. As the kids became more bored with a technology driven classroom, they began to use the technology to have fun playing video games. Science projects on computers hold no meaning and aren’t much fun. Drill and kill math skills become dreaded. Genius Hour is a joke! Child #2 now goes to private high school. The only thing I can say about those 3 yrs of MS for my son (#2) was that he got a really good education in Fortnite….nothing more. His freshman year (last year) was a deprogramming year….from depersonalized learning, from common core, from SEL tactics etc.
I know I’m an old and out-of-date educator, but I still believe there is more to learning than managing technology. Everyone still needs to read poetry and great literature,write business letters and personal messages, sing, dance, tell jokes and make decisions. In short: life is not just running a machine; it is also dreaming, creating, and loving. (And don’t forget cooking and cleaning up!) All of the things I’ve mentioned should be a part of school experience.
After reading this, I have more questions than answers. Does the whole school operate this way, or are certain classes selected? Do they start this in K? Frankly, I do not think many K students would be able to handle this? Since this program has been operating for some time to they have any results on how students are doing compared to those in traditional classes?
You mentioned that one of the objectives is to enable a larger class size. Has Mineola tried to increase the size of class to see how students cope? I do not see large classes operating at this level of independence with technology in poor schools with large classes. I also think many older teachers may some difficulty adjusting as well. Lots of what was done in math in the class could also be done with a pencil and paper.
I did like some aspects of this class. I liked that students sometimes worked together, that instruction was not just sitting in front of screen all day on rote material. I liked that they are teaching writing. Many schools do a poor job on this.
I did not like that students worked on an e-reader instead of reading real books, which is better for most students. The big caveat of what is going on is that if “personalized learning” were widely adopted, it would not look like this in poor schools. We know this because we have seen how CAI is adopted in poor schools. Large classes with very little human interaction are what we have seen in poor schools. The computer is used to supplant human instruction, and the students do poorly because they are bored out of their minds.
All life we work but work’s a bore.
If life’s for livin’, then what’s livin’ for?
This practice is beginning to run rampant on Long Island. High wealth districts fueled by assistance from BOCES are diverting important resources toward the newest fad. Chromebooks and Ipads are replacing textbooks, novels and effective teaching. Often those with students special needs spend even more time on devices.
Technology is often sold as a way to diversify instruction while collecting data. Technology should be used as one of MANY tools in a teacher’s repertoire. It is becoming the primary tool that ignores research and good solid pedagogy.
I’ve been told that I am too old to comprehend the importance of this garbage. Meanwhile, last year 95% of my 5th grade students could not even sign their name and I had to beg to get class sets of novels. Spelling and vocabulary workbooks are no longer purchased.
We are heading down a path that I fear will set us behind the rest of the civilized world.
I see computers as useful tools, not as a means to drive instruction. Some of the tech uses in Mineola were redundant. The Ipad was merely substituting for paper and pencil. It seems like the intention is to sell more products. Tech goes out of style and often breaks. Are districts going to be able to afford this? Many states are barely willing to pay for new textbooks. Is this type of instruction only for the affluent? I believe that what happens between students and teacher is much more valuable to learning than what happens between students and a machine.
New York has public employees in the Gates-funded SETDA association which promotes digital learning and private-public partnerships. Why is a public employee association partnered with “gold, silver, event and strategic” private partners?
A former SETDA director said the group lobbies. Who are they lobbying for, the funder, Gates, for the private sector partners or, for the public employees? And, by what authority?
Heed these studies.There are more. Parents and teachers need this information
https://time.com/5437607/smartphones-teens-mental-health/
https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/cbhsq-reports/NSDUHDetailedTabs2017/NSDUHDetailedTabs2017.htm#tab11-2B
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/09/blue-light-from-phone-screens-accelerates-blindness-study-finds
The female physicians I know who have children go into their children’s schools and say, “TOO MUCH SCREEN TIME.” One eye, ear, nose physician has to do this several times during the school year with this same message. Good for this mother, who is also a physician. BTW, these mothe/ physicians also READ hard and soft covered books to their children.
This is just using the device to replace other tools- paper, pencil, book. That isn’t what parents object to in “personalized learning”.
What they object to is how it looks when the entire day is driven by the computer program. That’s very different than what’s described in this article. What THAT looks like is this- the students respond to directives from the program and read short passages or view short films and answer sets of questions. Over and over and over. For the entire class period. That’s the cheap garbage my local public school was sold and (sadly) purchased and that’s what they’re getting rid of and probably regret purchasing.
What’s described in this story is what we were SOLD. It wasn’t what we got. I don’t think anyone would object to students working on a device rather than paper and pencil. What they object to is a hard sell of a cheap computer program that essentially replaces a teacher and is glorified test prep.
Chiara: “I don’t think anyone would object to students working on a device rather than paper and pencil.”
Students aren’t learning how to write in longhand. Many don’t know how to sign their names. This is NOT good learning.
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Clipping the script: Schools erase cursive from the student experience
By T. Rees Shapiro
April 4, 2013
The curlicue letters of cursive handwriting, once considered a mainstay of American elementary education, have been slowly disappearing from classrooms for years. Now, with most states adopting new national standards that don’t require such instruction, cursive could soon be eliminated from most public schools.
For many students, cursive is becoming as foreign as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. In college lecture halls, more students take notes on laptops and tablet computers than with pens and notepads. Responding to handwritten letters from grandparents in cursive is no longer necessary as they, too, learn how to use email, Facebook and Skype.
And educators, seeking to prepare students for a successful future in which computer and typing skills have usurped penmanship, are finding cursive’s relevance waning, especially with leaner school budgets and curricula packed with standardized testing prep. So they’re opting not to teach it anymore…
http://wapo.st/YW1z1W?tid=ss_mail
My nine year old grandson is tech savvy. He attends a public school in Texas. He can barely write, and he is bright. I tried to get him to write in response to “field trips” we made during the summer. I could barely get two sentences out of him at a time during the two weeks he visited.
Where I worked, writing was an integral part of instruction. We started in K. Students kept journals, frequently wrote and edited work, and they wrote across the curricula. They shared work and sometimes “published” their work. By the time our students entered fourth grade, they easily wrote a full page or more. Of course, this did apply not my ELLs that I taught.
I just think this stuff is sold so dishonestly. When it first came out they sold as it essential because it was centered around “tech”- the whole “digital native” nonsense someone in Google’s marketing department came up with and they all started parroting.
When that proved unpopular with parents (and students, btw) they REBRANDED it as NOT about the tech but instead about “finding your passion” or whatever.
Just sell the product honestly. Don’t pitch it as one thing, realize that’s a bad selling point, then invent different RHETORIC to describe it!
Ask ordinary questions you would ask when purchasing any other product: why do we need this? What’s the unique value? How is it better than the old way?
And stop bullying people into buying it. There’s nothing magical about a tablet. If you prefer to use a pencil and read a book you’re not “clinging to the status quo” or a Luddite. I’d also like to know why schools are paying full price for this stuff. It’s a privilege for these product marketers to get their stuff into the hands of 3rd graders. Why are we paying so much for it? They work for US, not the other way around. They’re not doing us a favor selling this stuff. Public schools are HUGE buyers. They should have to vie for our business.
Only 75%? What’s wrong with that teacher?!
I say superglue VR headsets to the kid’s faces and force them to interact only with pictures and videos of the real world. That’ll be good for them. You know what, forget the glue and use drills instead. Screw the web permanently to their skulls. Awesome idea! since I say so myself.
This is slightly off topic, but of importance. Kellogg’s is selling products to children that are not healthy. They put artificial food dyes in food targeted for children in the US but not when it is sold to other countries like Australia.
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Kellogg’s is saying one thing and doing another. We need to hold them accountable.
Food Babe
Published on Sep 11, 2019
The hypocrisy of Kellogg’s is disgusting. Please share this video clip. We must hold them accountable. Kellogg’s said they were going to remove dyes & BHT back in 2015… and instead are creating new products with these same chemicals targeted towards children. It’s a disgrace. It’s a lie. And it needs to stop. Join me and 22k+ others and sign the petition – https://foodbabe.com/babyshark
Every parent of young children should know all about “Brain Hacking” and how dangerous some of these hacks are to not only adults but even more so to young children.
Likewise, tech companies are working to create an algorithm that can “teach” Social Emotional Learning. It is dubious that this is a legitimate use of software. Tech companies are eager to collect data, and claiming they can record or evaluate SEL is another way to monetize young people and create another revenue stream for themselves. This is dangerous on so many levels it makes my brain explode. Can you imagine labeling or mislabeling certain people for life based on some data from a six year old? It is twisted and wrong. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/09/does-social-and-emotional-learning.html
I just visited a brand-spanking-new school. It’s going to be LEEDs certified, & it’s beautiful & green.
On the other hand, it’s hooked up to its ears in the latest technology.