Do cell phones help or hinder education (k-12)? Do cell phones help or hurt social skills? Do cell phones cause distraction and loss of focus? Today we bring you an article published in The Harvard Gazzette by Anna Lamb Bans may help protect classroom focus, but districts need to stay mindful of students’ sense of connection, experts say Students around the world are being separated from their phones. In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 77 percent of U.S. schools had moved to prohibit cellphones for nonacademic purposes. In September 2018, French lawmakers outlawed cellphone use for schoolchildren under the age of 15. In China, phones were … [Read more...]
Reading on a smartphone promotes over activity in the prefrontal cortex and lowers reading comprehension
Today we bring you a new article on the impact of "screen time" on learning. As you will note from some of our previous articles the more time children spend on e-devices (phone, tablet, computer) the less they learn and retain. The report comes to use from PsyPost written by Beth Elwood and titled: Reading on a smartphone promotes over activity in the prefrontal cortex and lowers reading comprehension. The original article can be read at: https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/reading-on-a-smartphone-promotes-overactivity-in-the-prefrontal-cortex-and-lowers-reading-comprehension-study-finds-62848?fbclid=IwAR0yJl0lXkWhsrbdkfUY-M5c5fQL1wkk6cKiDQkxKII09W22bUbMw6zI6EM Here's the article in its … [Read more...]
Toddlers – Parents reading from a book vs. interactive tablet
Is there a difference between parents reading to their toddler from a book vs. using an interactive tablet? Apparently there are some studies that say yes. Today we bring you an overview of some recent research for your consideration. We've shared the body. Clicking the link gives you the overview plus a LOT more detail if you want to get into it. The article appeared in the American Journal of Pediatrics in December 2021. OBJECTIVES In some studies, parents and toddlers verbalize less when engaging with a tablet versus a print book. More needs to be known regarding child contributions to specific parent verbalizations. We examined parent-toddler contingent interactions with tablet … [Read more...]
Big Teacher Is Watching: How AI Spyware Took Over Schools
From an article at Bloomberg written by by Priya Anand and Mark Bergen At Pekin Community High School, the teachers are something close to omniscient. Education, even in-person education, is digital in the Covid-19 era, and staff members use a piece of software to watch everything students do on school-issued laptops and to keep them off banned websites. The kids are aware. “They pretty much know that they’re being monitored 24/7,” says Cynthia Hinderliter, head of technology at the school outside Peoria, Ill. Still, class clowns persist. Hinderliter pulls up a detailed dashboard of student online activity, which reveals the identities of rule breakers. A yellow “EXPLICIT” label … [Read more...]
‘Telepresence’ robots are making virtual school feel a little more like real school
Todays article comes from The Washington Post and Jennifer Davis. She explores technology and robots introduced during the pandemic and the impact on K-12 education. You'll either love it or it will scare the ........ out of you. It has been a year full of the unexpected for families who have had to quickly adjust to masks, quarantines and virtual and hybrid learning, all thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. For Eliza Engel and her son Thomas McKnight, one of the surprises 2020 has brought is that the sixth-grader at Burgundy Farm Country Day School in Alexandria, Va., now attends class with the help of a robot. “It’s really, truly amazing, because it looks like … [Read more...]
Big Teacher Is Watching
The dramatic expansion of the use of computers to help educate and train students is supposed to be a good thing. Is it really? Is there anything going on behind the scenes that you may not be aware of but should be if you knew? We don't share many articles from Bloomberg but today's an exception. The article is a really long but informative. Grab a refreshment and sip it as you read (yes it will take 5-7 minutes to read it). Give it a read and then decide...should you be worried and do something about it in your local school district? The pandemic caused schools to embrace laptops, tablets, Zoom, and an app called GoGuardian that tracks everything students (and, sometimes, … [Read more...]
Chipping children in public schools
Step into the future with us. Our love of technology and belief that technology will solve our education problems and challenges is entering a new phase. 1:1 computers are the rage. Implantable chips are starting to appear. You are aware that pets are routinely chipped to help identify them and return them to their owners. Out of that technology has come implantable microchips for humans. A story at NPR explains how thousands of Swede's have had a chip implanted to simplify accessing facilities and making purchases. They can hold medical information and social media profiles. In the name of convenience your chip helps you live better. In yet another NPR article we learn of a Wisconsin … [Read more...]
Deepfake teachers & technology: the future of K-12 public education?
Ready to glimpse the future of K-12 public education? Put your walking shoes on and check your skepticism at the door and enter the looking glass with me... The future of K-12 public education is...Deepfake teachers. First what the heck is "deepfake"? Definition: "an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said" "Deepfake (a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake") is a technique for human image synthesis based on artificial intelligence(A.I). It is used to combine and superimpose (Photoshop/Edit) existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a … [Read more...]
Why writing by hand makes kids smarter
In todays computer age we're told that technology is the wave (and way) of/to the future. If we don't embrace "tech" our children will fall behind and be forever lost. If you've followed us you've read some of the articles we've shared about hand writing and the importance to taking written notes to retention and learning. Today we bring you yet another article titled: Why writing by hand makes kids smarter published at Medical Xpress. Give it read and let us know what you think. New brain research shows that writing by hand helps children learn more and remember better. At the same time, schools are becoming more and more digital, and a European survey shows that Norwegian children … [Read more...]
Virtual Teachers: The future of K-12 education
Covid has led a number of school districts and states to move to an on-line "virtual learning" environment. In this model the students do NOT go to school physically. Instead they stay at home and use a computer and internet access to be a member of a "virtual classroom". Teachers can see the students and the students can see the teacher. Lessons and tests are done on-line. Depending on the school district, students may attend daily or several times a week for period ranging up to 2-3 hours. This starts to mimic other on-line learning sources that have been in place for a number of years (We have shared two articles you may want to review: https://swweducation.org?p=6453 and … [Read more...]
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