The BBC reports that that Sweden has joined Norway in ousting electronics from its classrooms and reviving the use of books. The Swedish government, like Norway’s, concluded that electronic tools were causing a decline in literacy rates.
Sweden’s government is championing a renewed focus on physical books, paper and pens in classrooms, designed to reverse falling literacy levels.
Another publication, Undark, reports that the government is investing in textbooks, nonfiction books, and fiction books.
Schools in Sweden are returning to more traditional learning methods – such as reading from physical books – after seeing their reading standards drop while ipads and laptops were used.
There is now a focus on using more printed textbooks, handwriting and less screen time in early education. Experts say reading levels are getting better because of this.
Some teachers have said students are asking for more books and paper based learning in schools, saying they learn more quickly and retain information better than using a laptop.
This isn’t a total ban on technology in the classroom and digital devices are still used, but the government is spending millions buying physical textbooks, and library books.
During the 2000s and 2010s, books were sidelined in Swedish classrooms and replaced with laptops and ipads.
The idea was to prepare students for life in a digital world.
But it seems to have backfired.
Sweden’s reading standards, which were among the best in Europe in 2000, began to fall.
In 2012, after years of getting worse, its Pisa scores — a worldwide test that measures reading, maths and science literacy among 15-year-olds — hit their lowest point.
Now, by popular demand, the books are back in the classroom and things are improving again.
The state has launched a national reading challenge for ten-year-olds and the classes that read the most books win prizes.
Sweden had intended to be a leader in the field of digital learning, but eventually concluded that the heavy use of Ed-tech was harming student learning. Increased screen time was leading to distraction, inability to concentrate, and lessened ability to do deep reading. “Studies have linked heavy digital use to reduced comprehension and memory retention as well as eye strain.”
The U.S. spends billions every year for Ed-tech. But the pushback is growing.
Jonathan Haidt of NYU, a critic of Ed-tech and social media for children, has kept a running tab on his Twitter account of cities and school districts in the U.S. that ban social media for children. where students spend less time on cell phones and social media, libraries report an increase in books checked out.
To those who are not on the payroll of Big Tech are likely to recognize that the frenzied spending of billions of dollars on Ed-tech had more to do with profits than with student learning.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have an idea about technological innovation that I think describes its problem. I call it the iron law of tech. For every improvement in human technology, some aspect of previous technology is sacrificed. I first noticed this when word processors would find tasks more difficult in later versions of the word processor. That got me to thinking.
When I was a boy, we milked cows with these nifty little rubber sucking devices called inflations (you can bet my little brain had a time wrapping itself around the economic meaning). Inflations mimicked the calf suckling the cow, and the resulting vacuuming of the milk sent it quicker and cleaner to the cooling tank. But it also increased propensity for certain bacterial infections of the cows, leading to certain problems.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
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