Reply to DCI: Too much focus on tablets/devices?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^^^ 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.   [/quote]

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.  [b] 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.[/b] [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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