How much screen time/technology is used in elementary schools in 2023?

[Anonymous]

I teach kindergarten and I see a big difference between the kids who have little to no iPad time at home and the kids who have unlimited access to it when home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The first year schools were back open (two years ago), my child's 5th grade report looked very similar--insane amounts of time spent on lightspeed. I raised it with the teacher in the parent-teacher conference --in the context of I was wondering whether little Larlo was not bringing paper work home because I never saw any--and she was very defensive about it. Claimed FCPS encouraged them to avoid paper. That teacher also quit mid-way through the year and thne they had a series of subs so the screen time was an issue all year long. My child complained of headaches multiple times and I had to pick up early. I'm convinced it was from staring at that tiny laptop screen all day.

The next year it was a little better but still nothing like my older dc's education at the same school pre-covid. Pretty disappointing how much "Mr Math" youtube videos and such were relied upon, and they seemed to spend an insane amount of time on computer "group projects".

The group projects in upper ES--always just slideshows-- are an incredible waste of time. They seem to finish the projects, and then there are days and days left where they just goof around doing nothing while other groups finish. This has happened over 4 different teachers with two different kids (same school). I don't think making slideshows is an important skill to learn in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach kindergarten and I see a big difference between the kids who have little to no iPad time at home and the kids who have unlimited access to it when home.

Parents work so hard to limit screen time at home and then its apparently unlimited screentimeapalooza or some FCPS classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually most of the smart boards put up years ago no longer work and the county doesn’t support the software anymore. So they are just giant screens to look at.

+1
I heard they were phasing out last year

Mine hasn’t worked in a few years. I want it GONE. It costs the school about $2500 work order to remove it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach kindergarten and I see a big difference between the kids who have little to no iPad time at home and the kids who have unlimited access to it when home.

Parents work so hard to limit screen time at home and then its apparently unlimited screentimeapalooza or some FCPS classrooms.

Not for me. Same poster. 20-25 minute max iPad Lexia time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Reid and central off said last year that teachers need to get back to pen and paper. Less google slide assignments and no you tube real alouds, etc. But it is not translating down to the schools and curriculum services hasn’t been able to re write and take out old slide decks from the Covid time.

Teacher here. I wonder if the schools who are mostly on laptops all day are the ones who were 1:1 with FCPSOn before Covid. I don’t know one teacher at my school that has kids on computers all day(virtual notebooks, google slide assignments, etc.) Technology is used but not all day. I would say if I had to estimate by grade level…
K-2- 30 mins a day
3-30-60 mins a day
4-6- 30-120 mins a day. 120 mins is when certain projects are happening or students are getting ready to publish pieces.

Good teachers know how to balance the tech usage.

My older dc went to the same ES as my 3rd. The older 2 they had one laptop cart for the whole grade. They were on laptops very little and did lots of physical projects and handwritten work. After Covid, the same school, youngest was on laptops for 2-3 hours every day in 4th, 5th and now 6th. The bulk of the instructional day. In 4th grade, he brought home maybe 5 pieces of handwritten work ALL YEAR LONG.
Some teachers are still using the "Gatehouse slides" as pp called them.

I don't see what's wrong with using the district's slides if they are tied to the standards and teach the content--why reinvent the wheel? Especially since the teacher shortage has meant they need to hire more provisional licensed teachers/teacher trainees etc. They have enough on their hands managing 26+ kids not to mention doing all the outside work to become licensed. And other teachers are taking up the slack for the beginning teachers. I'd advise you to choose your battles a little more wisely.

Do you think its appropriate for a 4th grader to only bring home say 10 pieces of written work on paper for an entire school year? Yes or no?
Do you think its appropriate for an elementary school student to be on the laptop for 2-3 hours EVERY school day? Think how much of the day is spent out of the classroom at lunch/specials/recess/transitions.

When this happened to us it was because my 3rd grader was just stuffing the paper in her desk and not bringing it home. Have your talked to your child's teacher about this concern you have? Because I don't believe this is actually happening. Post screenshots of your kid's light speed report.

You can't believe someone else's child's 4th grade experience was different than your own child's in a school system with 180k students?
Here's a cut and paste from one of the lightspeed report emails from his 4th grade year (2 years ago):

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WOW - was s/he bringing home the laptop and using it at home, too? Or was this just from school usage? What did the teacher and school admin say when you asked them about this? I

[Anonymous]

I didn't finish - I am curious about what the teachers and principals say when you guys ask them about the high computer usage?

Because surely you're talking to them about it and asking them these questions instead of just complaining here, right??

Families complained at our school last year and this year there is very limited computer usage. So it does help to talk to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first year schools were back open (two years ago), my child's 5th grade report looked very similar--insane amounts of time spent on lightspeed. I raised it with the teacher in the parent-teacher conference --in the context of I was wondering whether little Larlo was not bringing paper work home because I never saw any--and she was very defensive about it. Claimed FCPS encouraged them to avoid paper. That teacher also quit mid-way through the year and thne they had a series of subs so the screen time was an issue all year long. My child complained of headaches multiple times and I had to pick up early. I'm convinced it was from staring at that tiny laptop screen all day.

The next year it was a little better but still nothing like my older dc's education at the same school pre-covid. Pretty disappointing how much "Mr Math" youtube videos and such were relied upon, and they seemed to spend an insane amount of time on computer "group projects".

The group projects in upper ES--always just slideshows-- are an incredible waste of time. They seem to finish the projects, and then there are days and days left where they just goof around doing nothing while other groups finish. This has happened over 4 different teachers with two different kids (same school). I don't think making slideshows is an important skill to learn in elementary school.

Those slideshows were the last straw. Hours and hours and hours of time, not writing, but finding cool pictures on the internet to show off to friends. Then a capstone hour or two of sitting through the presentations of other children who also spent all their time finding cool pictures on the internet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Reid and central off said last year that teachers need to get back to pen and paper. Less google slide assignments and no you tube real alouds, etc. But it is not translating down to the schools and curriculum services hasn’t been able to re write and take out old slide decks from the Covid time.

They need to take the 1:1 laptops out of the ESes and mandate a max amount of time kids can be on the laptops doing work.

I agree with K-3 should have limited tech usage. I do think 4-6 should have daily tech usage.

Curious as to why? It's not like they don't get plenty of tech in their "non school" hours. I have never seen any research done showing kids learn better on laptops.

Speak for yourself, my kids get very little tech in their non school hours. They don't have their own devices, they don't watch YouTube or play video games. They watch maybe 30 minutes of tv a day which is FAR less than I did at their ages.

Ditto. Between 1-2 hours a week of the Netflix/Disney show or movie of her choice. I do not restrict the content as long as it is kid-appropriate. It can be National Geographic one time or My Little Pony the next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are looking at the Smartboard screen a great deal, because teachers are still teaching with slides, as there aren’t textbooks. Slides give a snapshot of instruction, and then, for example, a few math problems, and that’s the lesson for the day. Reading books and writing by hand on paper allows kids to engage much more fully with the content.

How is a smartboard worse than the blackboards of old??? They are far better in my opinion.
Kids do plenty of reading physical books and writing by hand in our school.

I disagree. There has been little to no reading a physical book, other than 20min at home enforced by a parent. There are no textbooks at school, so there is no material on social studies or science to read. The students only write during a writing prompt time. The Google slide decks from Covid are being used and kids might write in one word answers on a worksheet. There is no dictation. There is no taking notes at all. The notes are given to the students in a packet of worksheets stapled together. There is no textbook to consult with when the student misses some blanks. So, all in all, very little handwriting occurs each day and much less reading.

What pyramid are you in? This has not been our experience in Marshall pyramid. Tech is used but I see lots of work coming home that is handwritten.

DP but same thing in the Oakton pyramid. Both of my kids (2nd and 6th) bring home a ton of paper every day, they also don't bring their laptops home from school. The 2nd grader doesn't even use it every day.

Same in Robinson pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Reid and central off said last year that teachers need to get back to pen and paper. Less google slide assignments and no you tube real alouds, etc. But it is not translating down to the schools and curriculum services hasn’t been able to re write and take out old slide decks from the Covid time.

Teacher here. I wonder if the schools who are mostly on laptops all day are the ones who were 1:1 with FCPSOn before Covid. I don’t know one teacher at my school that has kids on computers all day(virtual notebooks, google slide assignments, etc.) Technology is used but not all day. I would say if I had to estimate by grade level…
K-2- 30 mins a day
3-30-60 mins a day
4-6- 30-120 mins a day. 120 mins is when certain projects are happening or students are getting ready to publish pieces.

Good teachers know how to balance the tech usage.

My older dc went to the same ES as my 3rd. The older 2 they had one laptop cart for the whole grade. They were on laptops very little and did lots of physical projects and handwritten work. After Covid, the same school, youngest was on laptops for 2-3 hours every day in 4th, 5th and now 6th. The bulk of the instructional day. In 4th grade, he brought home maybe 5 pieces of handwritten work ALL YEAR LONG.
Some teachers are still using the "Gatehouse slides" as pp called them.

I don't see what's wrong with using the district's slides if they are tied to the standards and teach the content--why reinvent the wheel? Especially since the teacher shortage has meant they need to hire more provisional licensed teachers/teacher trainees etc. They have enough on their hands managing 26+ kids not to mention doing all the outside work to become licensed. And other teachers are taking up the slack for the beginning teachers. I'd advise you to choose your battles a little more wisely.

Do you think its appropriate for a 4th grader to only bring home say 10 pieces of written work on paper for an entire school year? Yes or no?
Do you think its appropriate for an elementary school student to be on the laptop for 2-3 hours EVERY school day? Think how much of the day is spent out of the classroom at lunch/specials/recess/transitions.

When this happened to us it was because my 3rd grader was just stuffing the paper in her desk and not bringing it home. Have your talked to your child's teacher about this concern you have? Because I don't believe this is actually happening. Post screenshots of your kid's light speed report.

You can't believe someone else's child's 4th grade experience was different than your own child's in a school system with 180k students?
Here's a cut and paste from one of the lightspeed report emails from his 4th grade year (2 years ago):

Browsed

80
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Visited an average of

797
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Pages per day
Sun 0
Mon 952
Tue 506
Wed 964
Thu 1534
Fri 463
Sat 0

WOW - was s/he bringing home the laptop and using it at home, too? Or was this just from school usage? What did the teacher and school admin say when you asked them about this? I

That's nuts. Is she not paying attention in class? Have you ever got the comment that she's "not using technology appropriately" on progress reports--which basically means turning on their laptops when they are not supposed to, browsing the internet etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Reid and central off said last year that teachers need to get back to pen and paper. Less google slide assignments and no you tube real alouds, etc. But it is not translating down to the schools and curriculum services hasn’t been able to re write and take out old slide decks from the Covid time.

Teacher here. I wonder if the schools who are mostly on laptops all day are the ones who were 1:1 with FCPSOn before Covid. I don’t know one teacher at my school that has kids on computers all day(virtual notebooks, google slide assignments, etc.) Technology is used but not all day. I would say if I had to estimate by grade level…
K-2- 30 mins a day
3-30-60 mins a day
4-6- 30-120 mins a day. 120 mins is when certain projects are happening or students are getting ready to publish pieces.

Good teachers know how to balance the tech usage.

My older dc went to the same ES as my 3rd. The older 2 they had one laptop cart for the whole grade. They were on laptops very little and did lots of physical projects and handwritten work. After Covid, the same school, youngest was on laptops for 2-3 hours every day in 4th, 5th and now 6th. The bulk of the instructional day. In 4th grade, he brought home maybe 5 pieces of handwritten work ALL YEAR LONG.
Some teachers are still using the "Gatehouse slides" as pp called them.

I don't see what's wrong with using the district's slides if they are tied to the standards and teach the content--why reinvent the wheel? Especially since the teacher shortage has meant they need to hire more provisional licensed teachers/teacher trainees etc. They have enough on their hands managing 26+ kids not to mention doing all the outside work to become licensed. And other teachers are taking up the slack for the beginning teachers. I'd advise you to choose your battles a little more wisely.

Do you think its appropriate for a 4th grader to only bring home say 10 pieces of written work on paper for an entire school year? Yes or no?
Do you think its appropriate for an elementary school student to be on the laptop for 2-3 hours EVERY school day? Think how much of the day is spent out of the classroom at lunch/specials/recess/transitions.

When this happened to us it was because my 3rd grader was just stuffing the paper in her desk and not bringing it home. Have your talked to your child's teacher about this concern you have? Because I don't believe this is actually happening. Post screenshots of your kid's light speed report.

You can't believe someone else's child's 4th grade experience was different than your own child's in a school system with 180k students?
Here's a cut and paste from one of the lightspeed report emails from his 4th grade year (2 years ago):

Browsed

80
Different hosts

Visited an average of

797
Pages each day
Daily
Pages per day
Sun 0
Mon 952
Tue 506
Wed 964
Thu 1534
Fri 463
Sat 0

WOW - was s/he bringing home the laptop and using it at home, too? Or was this just from school usage? What did the teacher and school admin say when you asked them about this? I

That's nuts. Is she not paying attention in class? Have you ever got the comment that she's "not using technology appropriately" on progress reports--which basically means turning on their laptops when they are not supposed to, browsing the internet etc.

This PP isn't coming back because they made those numbers up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Reid and central off said last year that teachers need to get back to pen and paper. Less google slide assignments and no you tube real alouds, etc. But it is not translating down to the schools and curriculum services hasn’t been able to re write and take out old slide decks from the Covid time.

Teacher here. I wonder if the schools who are mostly on laptops all day are the ones who were 1:1 with FCPSOn before Covid. I don’t know one teacher at my school that has kids on computers all day(virtual notebooks, google slide assignments, etc.) Technology is used but not all day. I would say if I had to estimate by grade level…
K-2- 30 mins a day
3-30-60 mins a day
4-6- 30-120 mins a day. 120 mins is when certain projects are happening or students are getting ready to publish pieces.

Good teachers know how to balance the tech usage.

My older dc went to the same ES as my 3rd. The older 2 they had one laptop cart for the whole grade. They were on laptops very little and did lots of physical projects and handwritten work. After Covid, the same school, youngest was on laptops for 2-3 hours every day in 4th, 5th and now 6th. The bulk of the instructional day. In 4th grade, he brought home maybe 5 pieces of handwritten work ALL YEAR LONG.
Some teachers are still using the "Gatehouse slides" as pp called them.

I don't see what's wrong with using the district's slides if they are tied to the standards and teach the content--why reinvent the wheel? Especially since the teacher shortage has meant they need to hire more provisional licensed teachers/teacher trainees etc. They have enough on their hands managing 26+ kids not to mention doing all the outside work to become licensed. And other teachers are taking up the slack for the beginning teachers. I'd advise you to choose your battles a little more wisely.

Do you think its appropriate for a 4th grader to only bring home say 10 pieces of written work on paper for an entire school year? Yes or no?
Do you think its appropriate for an elementary school student to be on the laptop for 2-3 hours EVERY school day? Think how much of the day is spent out of the classroom at lunch/specials/recess/transitions.

When this happened to us it was because my 3rd grader was just stuffing the paper in her desk and not bringing it home. Have your talked to your child's teacher about this concern you have? Because I don't believe this is actually happening. Post screenshots of your kid's light speed report.

You can't believe someone else's child's 4th grade experience was different than your own child's in a school system with 180k students?
Here's a cut and paste from one of the lightspeed report emails from his 4th grade year (2 years ago):

Browsed

80
Different hosts

Visited an average of

797
Pages each day
Daily
Pages per day
Sun 0
Mon 952
Tue 506
Wed 964
Thu 1534
Fri 463
Sat 0

WOW - was s/he bringing home the laptop and using it at home, too? Or was this just from school usage? What did the teacher and school admin say when you asked them about this? I

That's nuts. Is she not paying attention in class? Have you ever got the comment that she's "not using technology appropriately" on progress reports--which basically means turning on their laptops when they are not supposed to, browsing the internet etc.

This PP isn't coming back because they made those numbers up.

I don't think so. My kid had a year with high numbers and a crappy teacher (4th grade) Why would someone make that up? It gets emailed to you every week.

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[Anonymous]

I remember my grade school kids in FCPS coming home from school a decade ago. When I asked them what they learned today, they said, "We watched YouTube videos." The teacher would put on a YouTube video to teach the concepts.

The only thing that has changed is that now the students can click the dashboard link to the video on their school laptop.

It's still just as lazy, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are looking at the Smartboard screen a great deal, because teachers are still teaching with slides, as there aren’t textbooks. Slides give a snapshot of instruction, and then, for example, a few math problems, and that’s the lesson for the day. Reading books and writing by hand on paper allows kids to engage much more fully with the content.

How is a smartboard worse than the blackboards of old??? They are far better in my opinion.
Kids do plenty of reading physical books and writing by hand in our school.

I disagree. There has been little to no reading a physical book, other than 20min at home enforced by a parent. There are no textbooks at school, so there is no material on social studies or science to read. The students only write during a writing prompt time. The Google slide decks from Covid are being used and kids might write in one word answers on a worksheet. There is no dictation. There is no taking notes at all. The notes are given to the students in a packet of worksheets stapled together. There is no textbook to consult with when the student misses some blanks. So, all in all, very little handwriting occurs each day and much less reading.

What pyramid are you in? This has not been our experience in Marshall pyramid. Tech is used but I see lots of work coming home that is handwritten.

DP but same thing in the Oakton pyramid. Both of my kids (2nd and 6th) bring home a ton of paper every day, they also don't bring their laptops home from school. The 2nd grader doesn't even use it every day.

Same in Robinson pyramid.

Marshall, Oakton, Robinson pyramids are primarily paper-based? Not the case at our ES in Oakton. Is this really supposed to be a pyramid-wide policy? I imagine it has more to do with the individual teacher's style than even the ES itself. Our teacher is very young and seems to favor tech.