DCI: Too much focus on tablets/devices?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with kids using the Chromebooks for classes and accessing educational material. I AM NOT ok with MS kids playing video games, talking on their cell phones, chatting, possibly sexting, sure to be hacking into some inappropriate sites...during school hours, period. If this is true (the other thread saying this) and DCI wants to be taken seriously it will need to stop that behavior immediately. I plan to ask these questions outright tomorrow. DCI if you are monitoring these post (and I suspect you are) please be transparent about what technology is and isn't allowed. That way parent can make an informed decision.

I cannot attend tomorrow's session, so could you please post their response to these questions you plan to ask. Thanks so much.

[Anonymous]

Please report back to us! I am not ok with using Chromebooks. Agree with what previous poster said -- MS kids get enough tech in every other aspect of their lives. I want deep learning, even if I have to start saving up for a private to get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PP here who actually had a child in a 1:1 device program for three years so I've seen it be incredibly successful with my own skeptical eyes...

but anyhoo, re: the environmental component, the kids would have had a variety of computers anyway, BESIDES the paper. Some would have had laptops at home for their use, or a tablet or a family desk top; the school would have had multiple carts of laptops, and rooms full of desk top computers. So the chromebooks just replace a bunch of computers that would have been around anyway, and lets those kids have one who would NOT have had one at home, plus removes a bunch of paper and textbooks. The uniformity of the style of computer and the software make it much much easier for teachers to plan computer use. Otherwise it's so ragtag.

My DC is now in a DCPS HS where they don't have a 1:1 device program and I see all kinds of problems that she did not have in middle school. For one thing, there are carts of laptops which must be configured, powered up, used, powered down by multiple classes. Work gets erased, thumb drives are lost. There are some classes which do have etexts and the computers require a flash application which neither our home desk top nor her mac laptop for home use has. She went to the public library and it didn't work there either. She can only do the assignments on a handful of computers in the school's media center. This is so antiquated and such a time waster. It would be much better if all the kids had the same technology so its use could be streamlined and planned.

And when you child gets to college, won't he/she be fully dependent on a laptop by then? DCI's approach just gives the kids a head start on what will be their technology life in a few years anyway. My DC is now regularly turning in work on notebook paper written with pencil -- yes, just like the good old 1950s, unlike middle school where almost everything was written on a tablet and either printed or emailed to the teacher.

You all are thinking of your kids as elementary school -aged. In a few years they will be more than capable of a 1:1 chromebook program.

Your kids will be captivated and obsessed with technology, and even if they don't have a chromebook for use at school they will still be obsessed. This way at least they can start to learn to manage its both its capabilities and its detractions.

You seem to have had a good experience with 1:1 technology in middle school. But you seem more concerned with the organizational aspect of things vs. the pedagogical. There is brain development going on in the frontal cortex around executive function that it not at all fully done by middle school or even high school. The immediate gratification of information presented on screens and the multi-tasking and lack of between-times to think, ponder, analyze,draw models will handicap students down the line. Developing brains needs 3-dimesions and to use all 5 senses to take in full information and to grow appropriately. I am an educator and see this myself in the upper elementary grades where otherwise bright students have comprehension issue and can't seem to form coherent, logical thoughts. Never in a million years would I send my kids to a school that encourages screens for the entire school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, DCI is middle and upper school. By the time your kids are in 6th or 7th grade they will be dealing with a tsunami of technology and social media. Even if they don't personally have smartphones, their friends will. Just accepting that this is happening and helping to guide kids to use technology appropriately can be a huge benefit to the kid and to the parents.

Second, if the kids don't have their own devices, a lof of school time will be spent pushing around carts of laptops and students powering them up and down. Worse yet, a computer lab that kids go to to do work-- waste of time. When kids carry around their own devices they incorporate them into the curriculum. Teachers plan for computer use and it's fairer for all kids, esp those who couldn't afford a computer and internet at home.

It's for these reasons that most private middle school programs are all moving to 1:1 device programs. This is the future. And for any of you with kids who have organizational problems, ADHD, executive function issues, etc., you'll see that technology will make everything much, much easier. No more lost assignments, no more loose papers, multiple folders, books, etc. It's all on one device.

It's also more environmental. Why print out a finished assignment for the teacher? Just email it. It won't get lost, the teacher can annotate it and email it back. Less paper and ink used.

My DC was in a private school for middle school and used an ipad throughout. Many parents were skeptical and some were downright upset, but in the end the parents overwhelmingly supported the program for the reasons above. And after a while the ipad wasn't the coolest thing ever. The kids got used to it and it stopped being the focus.


I personally think DCI is ahead of the curve.

Not all experts agree with your assessment. Children with organizational and executive function issues often find paper easier for organizing thoughts and computers and tablets distracting. It is too early in this experiment to declare 1:1 devices educationally sound practice. Hate to be cynical, but with the $$$ to be made by tablet manufacturers, consultants and software designers it may be hard to get any objective research out there. Not much money to be made from pencils and paper

This is exactly where I land too. There is a quote in the other thread from either Steve Jobs or the CEO of another successful tech company, and the fact that increasingly the CEOs of tech companies and other higher ups (read: also the richest folks on the scene) are sending their own children to tech-free schools like Waldorf. They know more than most about what the research on their products show. There are studies that show decreased executive functioning and reading retention and problem-solving with increased time on devices.

When I started law school, even though Nexis and Westlaw were completely dominating legal research, my top 15 law school forbid all first year students from doing any legal research online. They cited actual studies (both internal to the school and in the field) that showed that a student's overall ability to use superior legal reasoning and craft their arguments in the best way suffered when from the beginning we used online research. They wanted us to understand how the law library was organized, how to trace the trail of decisions, and how to find what we're looking for without just typing in a few words into a search engine and having the computer do our work for us. They insisted that this approach made us better law students and lawyers. Several other top law schools in the region (this was in California) espoused the same reasoning. Then, in 2nd and 3rd year of school, we pretty much used nothing but online legal research. But I grew to understand why the school took that approach, and we all benefited from it.

None of this is "anti-technology". But it's also not a "technology, all the time, and pretty much only technology" approach that my family is looking for.

The bottom line is, there is enough evidence out there for us to be concerned, but not enough for anyone to be certain either way of what the impacts of all this screen time will be on children, be they 2, 8, or 16 yrs old. Just because most of their peers will have tech devices does not make it healthy or a good choice, just like most of my kids' peers have plentiful access to t.v. but my kids don't. That is our families choice, it's a sound choice for our family, it's supported by evidence and it also works best for us.

We don't have enough info to be sure with tablets as THE PRIMARY SOURCE AND TOOL FOR LEARNING that that is a) NOT harmful, or b) is actually BETTER. We just don't know, but we know there are reasons to be concerned it's harmful.

I was all in for my kids to be an experiment with the rest of DCI's design (the whole language angle + IB) (1st kid would start in 2 years), but I'm not willing for my kids to be an experiment for constant exposure to a tablet and the internet. I have no worry that whatever access to technology my kids do have - wherever they go to school - that they will be behind, even if they ended up at a mostly no-tech school. Not worried. But I don't want them getting behind or being negatively impacted by too much exposure in the name of them supposedly getting ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PP here who actually had a child in a 1:1 device program for three years so I've seen it be incredibly successful with my own skeptical eyes...

but anyhoo, re: the environmental component, the kids would have had a variety of computers anyway, BESIDES the paper. Some would have had laptops at home for their use, or a tablet or a family desk top; the school would have had multiple carts of laptops, and rooms full of desk top computers. So the chromebooks just replace a bunch of computers that would have been around anyway, and lets those kids have one who would NOT have had one at home, plus removes a bunch of paper and textbooks. The uniformity of the style of computer and the software make it much much easier for teachers to plan computer use. Otherwise it's so ragtag.

My DC is now in a DCPS HS where they don't have a 1:1 device program and I see all kinds of problems that she did not have in middle school. For one thing, there are carts of laptops which must be configured, powered up, used, powered down by multiple classes. Work gets erased, thumb drives are lost. There are some classes which do have etexts and the computers require a flash application which neither our home desk top nor her mac laptop for home use has. She went to the public library and it didn't work there either. She can only do the assignments on a handful of computers in the school's media center. This is so antiquated and such a time waster. It would be much better if all the kids had the same technology so its use could be streamlined and planned.

And when you child gets to college, won't he/she be fully dependent on a laptop by then? DCI's approach just gives the kids a head start on what will be their technology life in a few years anyway. My DC is now regularly turning in work on notebook paper written with pencil -- yes, just like the good old 1950s, unlike middle school where almost everything was written on a tablet and either printed or emailed to the teacher.

You all are thinking of your kids as elementary school -aged. In a few years they will be more than capable of a 1:1 chromebook program.

Your kids will be captivated and obsessed with technology, and even if they don't have a chromebook for use at school they will still be obsessed. This way at least they can start to learn to manage its both its capabilities and its detractions.

You seem to have had a good experience with 1:1 technology in middle school. But you seem more concerned with the organizational aspect of things vs. the pedagogical. There is brain development going on in the frontal cortex around executive function that it not at all fully done by middle school or even high school. The immediate gratification of information presented on screens and the multi-tasking and lack of between-times to think, ponder, analyze,draw models will handicap students down the line. Developing brains needs 3-dimesions and to use all 5 senses to take in full information and to grow appropriately. I am an educator and see this myself in the upper elementary grades where otherwise bright students have comprehension issue and can't seem to form coherent, logical thoughts. Never in a million years would I send my kids to a school that encourages screens for the entire school day.

This, this, THIS. Again and again, this. This has to be thought through more OR more info on what the school plans to do to mitigate these effects (if there's anything they can do without reducing screen time), or there needs to be compromise on the "all tablets all the time". Or we will sadly have to go elsewhere, because this will not be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PP here who actually had a child in a 1:1 device program for three years so I've seen it be incredibly successful with my own skeptical eyes...

but anyhoo, re: the environmental component, the kids would have had a variety of computers anyway, BESIDES the paper. Some would have had laptops at home for their use, or a tablet or a family desk top; the school would have had multiple carts of laptops, and rooms full of desk top computers. So the chromebooks just replace a bunch of computers that would have been around anyway, and lets those kids have one who would NOT have had one at home, plus removes a bunch of paper and textbooks. The uniformity of the style of computer and the software make it much much easier for teachers to plan computer use. Otherwise it's so ragtag.

My DC is now in a DCPS HS where they don't have a 1:1 device program and I see all kinds of problems that she did not have in middle school. For one thing, there are carts of laptops which must be configured, powered up, used, powered down by multiple classes. Work gets erased, thumb drives are lost. There are some classes which do have etexts and the computers require a flash application which neither our home desk top nor her mac laptop for home use has. She went to the public library and it didn't work there either. She can only do the assignments on a handful of computers in the school's media center. This is so antiquated and such a time waster. It would be much better if all the kids had the same technology so its use could be streamlined and planned.

And when you child gets to college, won't he/she be fully dependent on a laptop by then? DCI's approach just gives the kids a head start on what will be their technology life in a few years anyway. My DC is now regularly turning in work on notebook paper written with pencil -- yes, just like the good old 1950s, unlike middle school where almost everything was written on a tablet and either printed or emailed to the teacher.

You all are thinking of your kids as elementary school -aged. In a few years they will be more than capable of a 1:1 chromebook program.

Your kids will be captivated and obsessed with technology, and even if they don't have a chromebook for use at school they will still be obsessed. This way at least they can start to learn to manage its both its capabilities and its detractions.

You are completely wrong that we are all thinking of our kids as elementary school students. I'm not the PP who identified as an educator, but in another capacity I work with kids are who mostly middle and high school aged, and I am very aware of developmentally what is occurring at those ages. And I am clear that being glued to a tablet is a bad idea for the 7 years of middle and high school. Seriously, think about that: 7 years where just about everything you read, write, and process is on a computer. A wireless computer. Never mind that every.single.spare.moment is probably filled with whatever the equivalent of Facebook or Instagram will be in 2+ years. There are everything from health concerns to social isolation concerns to ADHD concerns to emotional and physical health concerns about this model. My concern is definitely from the perspective of someone very familiar with 12-18 yr old development and who also can see some of the negative behavior trends occurring in older kids as technology gets more and more universal.

[Anonymous]

^^^ But don't you see that they are on laptops at school anyway more and more throughout middle school and into high school? But just crappy shared devices that take really long to pass out to everyone. And unfair advantages to those who have good computers and internet at home.

It's how they are used that matters. I think you are thinking that the kids will be experiencing sort of an on-line learning experience while in the classroom. That's simply not the case at my daughter's middle school. The tablets were a tool but not the major factor in learning. And if the same chromebooks are used by the school with the same software and internet, then certain programs/applications/content can be filtered.

Have you hefted a bunch of textbooks lately? They are huge and weigh a ton. That's why people use kindles all the time; for convenience.

Why not observe another 1:1 device program before ruling it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PP here who actually had a child in a 1:1 device program for three years so I've seen it be incredibly successful with my own skeptical eyes...

but anyhoo, re: the environmental component, the kids would have had a variety of computers anyway, BESIDES the paper. Some would have had laptops at home for their use, or a tablet or a family desk top; the school would have had multiple carts of laptops, and rooms full of desk top computers. So the chromebooks just replace a bunch of computers that would have been around anyway, and lets those kids have one who would NOT have had one at home, plus removes a bunch of paper and textbooks. The uniformity of the style of computer and the software make it much much easier for teachers to plan computer use. Otherwise it's so ragtag.

My DC is now in a DCPS HS where they don't have a 1:1 device program and I see all kinds of problems that she did not have in middle school. For one thing, there are carts of laptops which must be configured, powered up, used, powered down by multiple classes. Work gets erased, thumb drives are lost. There are some classes which do have etexts and the computers require a flash application which neither our home desk top nor her mac laptop for home use has. She went to the public library and it didn't work there either. She can only do the assignments on a handful of computers in the school's media center. This is so antiquated and such a time waster. It would be much better if all the kids had the same technology so its use could be streamlined and planned.

And when you child gets to college, won't he/she be fully dependent on a laptop by then? DCI's approach just gives the kids a head start on what will be their technology life in a few years anyway. My DC is now regularly turning in work on notebook paper written with pencil -- yes, just like the good old 1950s, unlike middle school where almost everything was written on a tablet and either printed or emailed to the teacher.

You all are thinking of your kids as elementary school -aged. In a few years they will be more than capable of a 1:1 chromebook program.

Your kids will be captivated and obsessed with technology, and even if they don't have a chromebook for use at school they will still be obsessed. This way at least they can start to learn to manage its both its capabilities and its detractions.

You seem to have had a good experience with 1:1 technology in middle school. But you seem more concerned with the organizational aspect of things vs. the pedagogical. There is brain development going on in the frontal cortex around executive function that it not at all fully done by middle school or even high school. The immediate gratification of information presented on screens and the multi-tasking and lack of between-times to think, ponder, analyze,draw models will handicap students down the line. Developing brains needs 3-dimesions and to use all 5 senses to take in full information and to grow appropriately. I am an educator and see this myself in the upper elementary grades where otherwise bright students have comprehension issue and can't seem to form coherent, logical thoughts. Never in a million years would I send my kids to a school that encourages screens for the entire school day.

This, this, THIS. Again and again, this. This has to be thought through more OR more info on what the school plans to do to mitigate these effects (if there's anything they can do without reducing screen time), or there needs to be compromise on the "all tablets all the time". Or we will sadly have to go elsewhere, because this will not be ok.

Ditto, ditto, ditto! So hoping they rethink this. I'm very disappointed by this development. I really thought we had middle/high school covered with DCI, but not at all if this is their game plan. DH is already pushing me to VA and I've fought him with "DCI will be so awesome, etc". I'll be agreeing with him if there isn't an about-face in the other direction- away from tech/computer everything.

[Anonymous]

Calam down, people. Lets' get some real information about how this shakes out at DCI versus getting panicky. I hope more actual parents and open house attendees can weigh in. I find it very hard to believe that DCI organizers are completely disregarding pedagogy and research in setting their curriculum and policies. In general, I have found organizers to be extremely reasoned and balanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ But don't you see that they are on laptops at school anyway more and more throughout middle school and into high school? But just crappy shared devices that take really long to pass out to everyone. And unfair advantages to those who have good computers and internet at home.

It's how they are used that matters. I think you are thinking that the kids will be experiencing sort of an on-line learning experience while in the classroom. That's simply not the case at my daughter's middle school. The tablets were a tool but not the major factor in learning. And if the same chromebooks are used by the school with the same software and internet, then certain programs/applications/content can be filtered.

Have you hefted a bunch of textbooks lately? They are huge and weigh a ton. That's why people use kindles all the time; for convenience.

Why not observe another 1:1 device program before ruling it out.

Most of us over 30 hefted heavy backpacks middle school through college. We survived, and there is zero evidence the books have gotten heavier. That is not a concern of mine.

And no, I don't think DCI students are sitting in classrooms receiving instruction from a Skype - in teacher. Maybe this is both a point we can agree and disagree on: there's nothing wrong with every student being issued their own tablet (we both agree, yes?). I think it is wrong for that student to spend seven years with a tablet as the almost sole source of educational materials (aside from live instruction and experiments/field trips). I agree, and I assume you disagree?

[Anonymous]

Haynes is 1:1 too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haynes is 1:1 too.

Any other schools? I'm not interested in sending my children to Haynes either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haynes is 1:1 too.

What does "1:1" mean, other than a 1:1 ratio of students to laptops/tablets? Does it mean anything specific about instruction? Should we assume 1:1 = no books, no paper, everything online? Or does it just mean everyone gets a tablet and there is some use of technology?

[Anonymous]

1:1 means each child gets their own personal device, as opposed to sharing in a computer lab, etc.

It generally means the technology will be integrated into the curriculum in meaningful ways but it doesn't preclude paper, books, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ But don't you see that they are on laptops at school anyway more and more throughout middle school and into high school? But just crappy shared devices that take really long to pass out to everyone. And unfair advantages to those who have good computers and internet at home.

It's how they are used that matters. I think you are thinking that the kids will be experiencing sort of an on-line learning experience while in the classroom. That's simply not the case at my daughter's middle school. The tablets were a tool but not the major factor in learning. And if the same chromebooks are used by the school with the same software and internet, then certain programs/applications/content can be filtered.

Have you hefted a bunch of textbooks lately? They are huge and weigh a ton. That's why people use kindles all the time; for convenience.

Why not observe another 1:1 device program before ruling it out.

Most of us over 30 hefted heavy backpacks middle school through college. We survived, and there is zero evidence the books have gotten heavier. That is not a concern of mine.

And no, I don't think DCI students are sitting in classrooms receiving instruction from a Skype - in teacher. Maybe this is both a point we can agree and disagree on: there's nothing wrong with every student being issued their own tablet (we both agree, yes?). I think it is wrong for that student to spend seven years with a tablet as the almost sole source of educational materials (aside from live instruction and experiments/field trips). I agree, and I assume you disagree?

Yes I agree. And I also think a constant program working with students on boundaries, thoughtful research, plagiarism, issues with social media, etc. would be necessary and useful. Students could sign contracts about appropriate use, etc.

In addition, here are two local private schools that have 1:1 device programs. Both have thoughtful blogs and articles about the use of the devices in the classroom.

http://www.saes.org/page/Academics/One-to-One-Laptop-Program (4th grade on up)

http://www.greenacres.org/page.cfm?p=793 (5th grade on up)