Fourth grade chrome books in school

[Anonymous]

We moved to California and are at a good public school. I am wondering how typical this is: My fourth grader has been given a Chromebook laptop by the school which he brings home every night. Part of his homework is to charge it and in order to find out what his homework is, he has to log into google classrooms. Many of the quizzes are online, and he said about 50% of the day they are on these laptops. There is some game he is able to access on the laptop including google and YouTube. I think there's been an issue with kids in the class playing games instead of paying attention to the teacher. When he was taking one of the quizzes that was part of his homework, I saw an ad come up for Italian Brainrot on the site he was on. Wondering if this is the norm. Feel like I am up against Goliath in not making him a screen addict. But also if others disable the internet or games on the computer while they are in school?

[Anonymous]

In California I would think you would find a lot of solidarity?

[Anonymous]

There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

[Anonymous]

In our district they issue chromebooks for K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

My lower elementary kid does not need the Chromebook or its distractions. It is harmful at the younger grades, even if it might have value at older grades.

[Anonymous]

Normal

[Anonymous]

It's normal and I hate it.

My kids are now at a private where they don't have laptops until 6th and don't bring them home until 7th. They do use them, because by college the kids are expected to be able to fluently use them for school (even though studies show they are harmful even in college, at least in class), but they step into it more slowly than the local publics.

[Anonymous]

Chromebooks are pretty used heavily used and/or issued to every public elementary school student by at 3rd grade, even early in many places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's normal and I hate it.

My kids are now at a private where they don't have laptops until 6th and don't bring them home until 7th. They do use them, because by college the kids are expected to be able to fluently use them for school (even though studies show they are harmful even in college, at least in class), but they step into it more slowly than the local publics.

Yes to both of these. It’s sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

My lower elementary kid does not need the Chromebook or its distractions. It is harmful at the younger grades, even if it might have value at older grades.

Neat. Sounds like Catholic (and no, you don’t have to be Catholic) or homeschooling is right for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

My lower elementary kid does not need the Chromebook or its distractions. It is harmful at the younger grades, even if it might have value at older grades.

Neat. Sounds like Catholic (and no, you don’t have to be Catholic) or homeschooling is right for you.

Kids in montessori almost never use computers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

My lower elementary kid does not need the Chromebook or its distractions. It is harmful at the younger grades, even if it might have value at older grades.

Neat. Sounds like Catholic (and no, you don’t have to be Catholic) or homeschooling is right for you.

Kids in montessori almost never use computers.

And if a Montessori school does, then it usually will be once a week, supervised, and only for typing class or a computer class...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no advertising ads or access to YouTube or any other site on our Chromebooks

Computers are here to stay. Instead of seeing them as evil why not try to show your child what you can learn from the internet. Show him how to identify legitimate sites for information he’s looking for. Unless he’s going to be using library books for research papers he needs to know how to use it for the right reasons.

What exactly does a fourth grader need to be researching on the internet? We're not talking publishable research here--we're talking about looking up information in the school library or maybe the county library, taking some notes, and writing a report that's probably one page total in length. This can and should be done with books in elementary school. I agree that there is a lot of high-quality content on the Internet, but I wouldn't give my child a highly-distracting device at age 10 and expect them to be mature enough to put aside the distractions and focus on using it to do research.

Furthermore, how many hours per day are dedicated to basic reading, writing, and math, and how many hours are dedicated to conducting research for reports? In fourth grade the majority of the child's time should be spent on fundamentals.

[Anonymous]

I honestly think we will look back at this and see it like smoking while pregnant or not using car seats. What were we thinking??? That is if we don't fully turn into Idiocracy by then.

The sad thing is this is just one more way that poor and rich kids will be different. Rich kids at private schools learn cursive and how to read novels. They develop attention spans. Poor kids get ed tech with ads shoved in their faces for 80% of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly think we will look back at this and see it like smoking while pregnant or not using car seats. What were we thinking??? That is if we don't fully turn into Idiocracy by then.

The sad thing is this is just one more way that poor and rich kids will be different. Rich kids at private schools learn cursive and how to read novels. They develop attention spans. Poor kids get ed tech with ads shoved in their faces for 80% of the day.

"This math lesson sponsored by Carl's Junior. F### you, I'm eating."