Screentime at School in Kindergarten

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd argue I had more computer time at school in the late 90s early 2000s than kids have today. We had a dedicated computer lab and we spent an hour in the lab once or twice a week. We even *gasp* used that time to just play games like Number Munchers and Oregon Trail. Parents didnt lose their minds and we all turned out perfectly fine. The pearl clutching is just over the top.

I always seemed to die of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Lol.

[Anonymous]

I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love Obama but this is the worst part of his legacy. The idea that technology strengthens the school experience. Even if 10% of the time it is useful, what a huge loss overall. So many missed interpersonal connections, so many missed *neural* connections when paper, pencil and hand are pushed to the side. So much habituation to instant gratification. We are creating a generation of screen addicts with poor eyesight and no patience.

To those of you advocating for a readaloud on screen, do you not get what’s missing? The physical closeness of the teacher surrounded by a semicircle of kids. Getting to know and love your teacher’s reading voice. Kids jockeying to see better, strengthening their negotiating and self advocacy skills—and their eyesight. The reverence for a tangible product rather than a screen. Teacher slowing down to answer questions with no glitches or blue light. Also, kids benefit from repeating the same books and daily chapters from a long book.

Well said.

Especially in the younger grades. Kids in K and 1st grade would be happy to play games or do puzzles or color or play with LEGOs during indoor recess. But it’s easier and quieter to throw on a video, so that’s what happens.

Recess is run by paraeducators and when there's a gigantic pair of shortage you end up with one person with three classes of kids and there's just no room in a classroom for everyone to be doing Legos and coloring pages. And of course a less experienced more stressed out educators probably more likely to rely on technology to babysit the kids

Right this is the risk of having the Chromebooks in the first place. They become a crutch and there's always an excuse for why they had to be used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

And you refuse to acknowledge that screens are used more than .1 percent of the time. So, you’re not really part of the discussion at all, you are ranting on the sideline. Keep in mind that screens show up other places than read aloud, such as indoor recess, as has been discussed here. Everyone else is having a conversation about it.

Also, your argument doesn't make any sense because most districts don't have Chromebooks in K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

EduTech is huge.

Read about Bobby Jindal's wife and Smartboards.

It's all $$$ for these corporations and then teachers love it bc it's a way to placate and occupy the kids. So it gets locked into place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

And you refuse to acknowledge that screens are used more than .1 percent of the time. So, you’re not really part of the discussion at all, you are ranting on the sideline. Keep in mind that screens show up other places than read aloud, such as indoor recess, as has been discussed here. Everyone else is having a conversation about it.

Also, your argument doesn't make any sense because most districts don't have Chromebooks in K.

You're right-they have iPads. Wake. Up. Must be so nice to be so ignorant while also pretending to be an authority. Delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd argue I had more computer time at school in the late 90s early 2000s than kids have today. We had a dedicated computer lab and we spent an hour in the lab once or twice a week. We even *gasp* used that time to just play games like Number Munchers and Oregon Trail. Parents didnt lose their minds and we all turned out perfectly fine. The pearl clutching is just over the top.

Is this a joke? An hour once or twice a week is far, far less than my elementary schoolers are getting. It’s several hours per day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

EduTech is huge.

Read about Bobby Jindal's wife and Smartboards.

It's all $$$ for these corporations and then teachers love it bc it's a way to placate and occupy the kids. So it gets locked into place.

Yep. My 4th grader spent 90 minutes a week last year using an app called Reflex that was supposed to teach times/division tables. An entire year of that and she didn’t know the times tables this year when they started doing longer multiplication problems. We made flash cards and learned in a few days. But I’m glad the teacher got 90 mins of quiet time each week while my child wasted time on a useless app. The flash cards would have cost the district 50 cents!

[Anonymous]

I’d love to hear insider examples of any public or private school admins that have backtracked on tech. What does it take to resist it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

EduTech is huge.

Read about Bobby Jindal's wife and Smartboards.

It's all $$$ for these corporations and then teachers love it bc it's a way to placate and occupy the kids. So it gets locked into place.

Yep. My 4th grader spent 90 minutes a week last year using an app called Reflex that was supposed to teach times/division tables. An entire year of that and she didn’t know the times tables this year when they started doing longer multiplication problems. We made flash cards and learned in a few days. But I’m glad the teacher got 90 mins of quiet time each week while my child wasted time on a useless app. The flash cards would have cost the district 50 cents!

Reflex requires parental consent. You could have easily opted out if you had bothered to pay attention to the digital tools permission slip sent home with your kid. But sure, blame everyone else but yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

EduTech is huge.

Read about Bobby Jindal's wife and Smartboards.

It's all $$$ for these corporations and then teachers love it bc it's a way to placate and occupy the kids. So it gets locked into place.

Yep. My 4th grader spent 90 minutes a week last year using an app called Reflex that was supposed to teach times/division tables. An entire year of that and she didn’t know the times tables this year when they started doing longer multiplication problems. We made flash cards and learned in a few days. But I’m glad the teacher got 90 mins of quiet time each week while my child wasted time on a useless app. The flash cards would have cost the district 50 cents!

Reflex requires parental consent. You could have easily opted out if you had bothered to pay attention to the digital tools permission slip sent home with your kid. But sure, blame everyone else but yourself.

If the parents had opted out of Reflex, what would the kid be doing during that time?

Also, how would a parent know that the time spent would be ineffective? If MCPS is havi mg the kids spend time on Reflex, it’s fair to assume that the program has been proven effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone would clearly outline the money trail of all this stuff. What are the incentives? Are people writing grants for new tech? Who is selling apps and why do schools buy?

EduTech is huge.

Read about Bobby Jindal's wife and Smartboards.

It's all $$$ for these corporations and then teachers love it bc it's a way to placate and occupy the kids. So it gets locked into place.

Yep. My 4th grader spent 90 minutes a week last year using an app called Reflex that was supposed to teach times/division tables. An entire year of that and she didn’t know the times tables this year when they started doing longer multiplication problems. We made flash cards and learned in a few days. But I’m glad the teacher got 90 mins of quiet time each week while my child wasted time on a useless app. The flash cards would have cost the district 50 cents!

Reflex requires parental consent. You could have easily opted out if you had bothered to pay attention to the digital tools permission slip sent home with your kid. But sure, blame everyone else but yourself.

If the parents had opted out of Reflex, what would the kid be doing during that time?

Also, how would a parent know that the time spent would be ineffective? If MCPS is havi mg the kids spend time on Reflex, it’s fair to assume that the program has been proven effective.

Well, for one, they could have taken the time to research it themselves. I know-parenting is a time suck /s. Also, parents always opt out of something or another. Teachers have it covered- that’s their job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling bullsh@! on you being a teacher OP. If you were, you’d know that children are not the most reliable narrators. You’d also know how to go about getting a better sense from the teacher themselves.
All that said, I see teachers relying on videos for read alouds more frequently now than a few years ago. I think part of it is due to resources they developed during virtual instruction and hard copies of books not being available (in classroom/school library) so it’s easier to find a video then look for an alternative title that fits their need.
Again, if you were a classroom teacher I think you’d understand this.
—elementary teacher

This seems like a ridiculous reason/excuse to not read to the kids.

Please tell me education in MCPS hasn't come to this for Kindergarteners where teachers are too effing lazy to read a book to a bunch of five year olds. As a kid that used to be the highlight of my day - my ACTUAL teacher reading the book. Sad, sad, sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling bullsh@! on you being a teacher OP. If you were, you’d know that children are not the most reliable narrators. You’d also know how to go about getting a better sense from the teacher themselves.
All that said, I see teachers relying on videos for read alouds more frequently now than a few years ago. I think part of it is due to resources they developed during virtual instruction and hard copies of books not being available (in classroom/school library) so it’s easier to find a video then look for an alternative title that fits their need.
Again, if you were a classroom teacher I think you’d understand this.
—elementary teacher

This seems like a ridiculous reason/excuse to not read to the kids.

Please tell me education in MCPS hasn't come to this for Kindergarteners where teachers are too effing lazy to read a book to a bunch of five year olds. As a kid that used to be the highlight of my day - my ACTUAL teacher reading the book. Sad, sad, sad.

Aww, if only you had reading comprehension skills as an adult, but you don't. Sad, sad, sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m one of the “maniacs” above. I’m not irate about YouTube readalouds themselves, but what they represent: the sweeping acceptance that digital substitutes are acceptable when they are a net negative and everyone knows it! Readalouds are probably one of the least problematic substitutions. See PP’s great point about math manipulatives. See the proliferation of app assessments. Encanto screenings at celebrations. On and on.

I don’t blame teachers for any of it. Edutech is a big business, as is curricular design, as is IT support…and Covid just accelerated the trend. meanwhile Silicon Valley execs send their kids to tech-free schools.

I teach in another MD district. We are required to use the various platforms a minimum amount each week per student. Amplify, iReady, Zearn, etc. Results of usage are sent to principals weekly and the rankings are shared during principal meetings. No principal wants to be at the bottom of the list so they come back to school and create incentives for classes to use these platforms. It's considered personalized learning and the time is built into our schedule but we have so much to cover during the day that was often don't get to it.

This is so dystopian.