Kindergarteners shouldn't be using iPads at school

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't think they need them. Mine uses it for Itrace and zearn. Maybe Zearn, but Itrace should be replaced with actual writing practice.

Why TF do kids need to do zearn anyway? Put it on paper! Then the information will actually stick! It's lazy, stupid, and the result of some schmo who is friends with a higher up at the public school system who managed to sell them on their stupid ineffective software.

Because it is easier to stick kids in front of computers than to provide actual instruction from a human being. And yep, "Edtech" is a huge business...follow the money. Always.

Yep and this is also a natural and necessary consequence of continually increasing class sizes and no differentiation. Teachers are struggling and this is an easy shortcut.

+1
I’m not a fan of screens in elementary school in the younger grades but understand why iPads and Chromebooks are used. My kids don’t use or own tablets at home. My kids’ teachers use Lexia and ST Math as a small group rotation so they can have time for some differentiation. Class sizes are too big. Because tracking is no longer in practice, the skill levels in one class are too extreme.

What does this mean?

Kids of all ability levels are in one class. You might have ten kids reading on level, five kids severely above, and five way ahead who are bored to tears. iPad time lets teachers pull kids in small groups so they can all get some instruction at their level.

Wasn’t this always the case? Kids of lots of levels in one class? I remember attending public and the only thing that was different was that a classmate and I got harder spelling words.

Putting kids in different groups based on ability happens in middle school or maybe 5th grade.

Nope, I definitely recall my elementary school tracked from first grade. They were very open about it, we all knew which class was the "best" class, which class had what we probably called "the stupid kids" but looking back was kids struggling with LDs diagnosed or not, and which classes were the middle ones.

Even in college (and I can't for the life of me remember why this came up in a sociology class), I remember a professor saying "and I know you elementary education major are being taught how to track students."

Not tracking is a fairly new thing. Varied ability classrooms are recent, and I don't know how teachers are expected to meet the needs of every child when there is such a wide spread. My child's second grade classroom has kids who are way above grade level and kids who still can't read or do basic addition. I feel for these teachers, we're demanding they perform superhuman work with less than zero support. And it ultimately hurts all the kids.

Yes. I was born in 1980 and my public ES tracked starting in first grade. My sister was born in 1987 and by the time she got there they didn’t track any more. My mom (who was mad about the change) said it was because too many parents were mad their kids weren’t in the tracked class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Screen use in public elementary school is atrocious. Teachers don’t teach any more. They throw up YouTube videos teaching fractions, the water cycle, US geography. You name it. The teachers are just there to press play and keep the peace.

I work at a public school and this is true unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Screen use in public elementary school is atrocious. Teachers don’t teach any more. They throw up YouTube videos teaching fractions, the water cycle, US geography. You name it. The teachers are just there to press play and keep the peace.

I work at a public school and this is true unfortunately.

And the policymakers view this as a win because then the curriculum is uniform and “equitable” and it softens the edges of a crappy teacher.

[Anonymous]

My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

Books are so cheap. You can by used books for $1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

Books are so cheap. You can by used books for $1

Great! Then you can buy plenty of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

Doesn’t your school have a library? Surely you can make do with the hundreds of books your school already has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

Doesn’t your school have a library? Surely you can make do with the hundreds of books your school already has.

Yes but if the book we need isn’t there….. Also the public library where I live limits holiday books so one teacher doesn’t check them all out for the entire season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

I live in a wealthy public school district and anything put on a wishlist/request/Amazon whatever from a teacher are filled immediately. Yet teachers at our school rarely do this. They want to play the video so they can do other things while the kids watch the book being read to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

I live in a wealthy public school district and anything put on a wishlist/request/Amazon whatever from a teacher are filled immediately. Yet teachers at our school rarely do this. They want to play the video so they can do other things while the kids watch the book being read to them.

This. Even in districts were these “wish lists” don’t get filled, teachers can use the school library or public library. There are many many books available. Use what is there. Or go to one of those Friends of the Library book sales were you can get a whole bag of books for $1-if you insist on buying them. Teachers managed to read to their class before YouTube. I don’t even remember classes having these ridiculous wish lists in the 80s-90s either. I went to a UMC highly rated public school and we certainly didn’t have one and the school supply list was minimal

[Anonymous]

Blame the lovely school district. They’re spending their money on DEI and restorative justice and salaries for central office folks. Teachers are hanging on by a thread. Two of my colleagues who’ve taught for more than 15 years resigned this week. They haven’t been able to find long term subs for them yet. They’ll be lucky to find daily subs.

[Anonymous]

Kids do things like Lexia on iPads, that's an essential learning tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in K at our local public elementary. I expected to think that they use the computer too much but it’s way worse than I thought. They watch YouTube videos all the time to learn stuff. At first I thought my kid was joking with me because he knows that at home we don’t let him have any screen time except for special things. But we went to Open House and saw that reading class for K was going through a PowerPoint, then watching a video of someone reading a book.

Yes this is what galls me the most. K teachers don’t read their kids books!!! They play YouTube videos of some other teacher teaching a book and holding up the pictures!!!!

Why don’t you ask the teachers which books you can buy for the classroom on Amazon? Any book I want to read outside of our curriculum is purchased by me. That gets expensive. It took me years to build up a classroom library. I still show some books on YouTube because I don’t have the money to buy them.

I live in a wealthy public school district and anything put on a wishlist/request/Amazon whatever from a teacher are filled immediately. Yet teachers at our school rarely do this. They want to play the video so they can do other things while the kids watch the book being read to them.

This. Even in districts were these “wish lists” don’t get filled, teachers can use the school library or public library. There are many many books available. Use what is there. Or go to one of those Friends of the Library book sales were you can get a whole bag of books for $1-if you insist on buying them. Teachers managed to read to their class before YouTube. I don’t even remember classes having these ridiculous wish lists in the 80s-90s either. I went to a UMC highly rated public school and we certainly didn’t have one and the school supply list was minimal

I can see why teachers use the YouTube videos. They can easily put it up on the screen and all the kids can see the words and no need to go looking for the book.

But it's piracy and effectively stealing from the author of the book. And teachers should really be reading to kids themselves.