Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, please yes! However, it can’t just be ‘no tech.’ I would love it if DCPS had to get teacher approval before they can change a curriculum or something like this. Because what I imagine is -IF they ever said lower tech what would happen is they’d make more teachers use their poor curriculum that many supplement for.

One of the first things to advocate for is why are they making pre-k classrooms have a laptop cart and making them have iPads? I will say they don’t give enough for 1:1, usually about half a class's worth.

However, it’s still weird. 3-5 year olds don’t need iPads at school. And teaches don’t need a big useless cart taking up space.

This is something small but I think starting in the lowest grades will be the easiest. DCPS has spent a lot of money on useless tech and horrible partnerships. I’m not sure how long the contracts are.

Starting with youngest sounds right, and you’ll likely find many parents there with energy to advocate around it.

The way tech is normalized for little kids is just depressing. Recently saw PK class doing activities in centers, and one of the many things going on in the classroom was a YouTube video (on theme) looping back and forth.

Parents of little kids actually have little understanding of the complexity of the issue for older kids. So no, I don’t think they should dominate the discussion.

I think you need to focus on the curriculum and ineffectiveness of “Ed tech” as opposed to portraying the image of a precious Montessori mom who believes that even one episode of Teletubbies will pollute her child’s brain.

The issue is not a teacher putting a dance video on the smart screen - that is actually probably a fun and good use of screens. The actual issue is that the screen/algorithm based instructional methods replacing paper *do not work.* Even more of an alarm bell should sound when the school starts telling you that the instruction will be “self paced” with your child on a device.

So the upshot is - no, you cannot act like an entitled parent and cry that your baby is being “exposed to screens.” Because computers are obviously here to stay in the world. You need to focus on how Ed tech has replaced books and paper based education despite being catastrophically less effective - particularly in math.

I hate this so much. Last year our DCPS elementary PTA included as one of the things they were raising money for “more tech for kindergarten.” I think in a couple of decades we will look back and think what the heck were we doing. It is going to be like when there were cigarette vending machines in high schools.

Screen usage this early (PK and K?!?) sets stage for the kids to be attached to their iPads and phones, watching TikTok videos and mindlessly scrolling their social network feeds for the rest of their lives. As a parent, I just want some normal, in-person face-to-face teaching at school.

I was shocked at how much casual, unnecessary screen use I saw in PK and early elementary grades just by taking tours of schools last year. Just like the above PP said - the smartboards were being used for YouTube dance breaks, for playing a video reading a book aloud to children, and for a “virtual field trip”. 1:1 devices are a problem but clearly smartboard videos are being way over-utilized too.

There are parents at specific schools who have organized around this. There are also organizations that have worked with the middle schools in DC. You might want to look into Fair Play, as they are doing a lot of work in these areas: https://fairplayforkids.org/screen-free-even-school/

PP adding - sure, the video was on theme. But it was also unnecessary IMO

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, please yes! However, it can’t just be ‘no tech.’ I would love it if DCPS had to get teacher approval before they can change a curriculum or something like this. Because what I imagine is -IF they ever said lower tech what would happen is they’d make more teachers use their poor curriculum that many supplement for.

One of the first things to advocate for is why are they making pre-k classrooms have a laptop cart and making them have iPads? I will say they don’t give enough for 1:1, usually about half a class's worth.

However, it’s still weird. 3-5 year olds don’t need iPads at school. And teaches don’t need a big useless cart taking up space.

This is something small but I think starting in the lowest grades will be the easiest. DCPS has spent a lot of money on useless tech and horrible partnerships. I’m not sure how long the contracts are.

Starting with youngest sounds right, and you’ll likely find many parents there with energy to advocate around it.

The way tech is normalized for little kids is just depressing. Recently saw PK class doing activities in centers, and one of the many things going on in the classroom was a YouTube video (on theme) looping back and forth.

Parents should consider reaching out to the Ed Tech Law Center for support.

As a teacher, please yes! However, it can’t just be ‘no tech.’ I would love it if DCPS had to get teacher approval before they can change a curriculum or something like this. Because what I imagine is -IF they ever said lower tech what would happen is they’d make more teachers use their poor curriculum that many supplement for.

One of the first things to advocate for is why are they making pre-k classrooms have a laptop cart and making them have iPads? I will say they don’t give enough for 1:1, usually about half a class's worth.

However, it’s still weird. 3-5 year olds don’t need iPads at school. And teaches don’t need a big useless cart taking up space.

This is something small but I think starting in the lowest grades will be the easiest. DCPS has spent a lot of money on useless tech and horrible partnerships. I’m not sure how long the contracts are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love for parents to push back.

Yes

Let’s go!

I think the best way might be to explain the problem to your council member. I'm not a huge Brooke Pinto fan, but I actually think she cares about education and has started paying attention to the problems in DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:I would love for parents to push back.

Yes

I would love for parents to push back.

The studies all show that outcomes from ed tech are terrible. Plus the WiFi at my kid’s schoolis terrible and the kids spend most of their “ed tech” time trying to log in.

They had a “math day” and invited parents to try out the Ed tech using our kids’ login info. In the 20 minute session ZERO parents were able to log in. We just sat there watching a page fail to load.

Is anyone organizing around this? It’s a terrible waste of time for all students at all levels per the research and it’s made worse by terrible laptops and slow connections. Mindless worksheets are better than this!