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".

Anonymous wrote:I get the light speed report. My 2nd grader is only on her computer 2-3 days a week for maybe 20 minutes. My 5th grader is on twice a day for 20 minutes each. Neither of them brings their laptop home.

Sounds like a school where the school admin are on top of what the teachers are doing.

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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

Anonymous wrote:If I could do elementary and maybe even middle school for my kids over again I would pick a school without computers.

This does not exist.

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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.

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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.

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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.

I get the light speed report. My 2nd grader is only on her computer 2-3 days a week for maybe 20 minutes. My 5th grader is on twice a day for 20 minutes each. Neither of them brings their laptop home.

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

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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? Its 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.

Why are they on tech so much during non-school hours? You could make your home tech-free other than when necessary. No video games, no TV, no phones.

This. The amount of time kids are playing video games and/or on YouTube is ridiculous.

And it also makes them very bored by slow, traditional means of education that are not moment-to-moment interactive close to their face. Not just bored--incapable of directing their attention to paper worksheets, whiteboards, teacher talking etc. They may not be disruptive, but it just isn't sinking in. This is one of the reasons teachers use tech---they are at a loss on how to engage kids, even those who are well-behaved, but just have had their attention shaped at a different speed of interaction through screens. Who can get an answer to every curiosity immediately and who have an endless stream of entertainment. It's not clear what to do because technology is just more information-rich and immediate and personalized than static analog materials and is integrated in contemporary life--but learning with real things and real people is also essential to children's development. Our kid went to a preK-2 Montessori that limited tech and was filled with books/manipulatives etc. but the "works" that kids used to focus on easily and love (my mom was a Montessori teacher and I worked in her classes in hs/college and have seen the shifts over time) were too boring to many. The pictures on the website etc. showed happy engagement, and sometimes there was, but in the past 15-20 years or so there's undercurrent of boredom and distraction in the young kids that wasn't there before. I think we need to find new ways of deep engagement--maybe they are technology-enhanced physical activities-- maybe they are not--but I think it's not feasible to go back to the traditional basics and think that it's going to work. There are certain physical things like Legos that seem to sustain interest and enjoyment over time--maybe analyze the features of those and design more ways of learning? I don't think there are easy solutions.

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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.

Kids need to know how to research, utilize programs, type, put together presentations. If kids don’t get these skills in late ES, middle and high school will be much more difficult. I am not saying they should be glued to a computer, but they should be utilized daily. One goal of school is preparing the workforce. Most jobs use computers daily.

If they actually learned to type, that would be useful. Sadly, they do not.
MS and HS is plenty of time for the extremely difficult task of learning how to put google images in slide shows.
They need to learn how to read, take notes, think about a topic, and organize their thoughts, draft, revise, etc. ALL of that is best done with real books and on paper. Using the "programs" is simple and can come much later.

If schools wanted to have one room with laptops where kids went for a special, that would be reasonable. They don't need laptops to learn. The laptops are detrimental to learning.

I am previous poster. They can learn how to read, think, draft, revise and also learn how to use technology. I don’t agree with all day technology usage as some posters are claiming, but technology is and will be a part of our society so education should include tech usage. Everything should be balanced. Schools should not look exactly the same as they did 50 years ago.

DP. Tech usage could be a lot more restricted than it is now and students could still learn those skills. Also, I don’t buy this idea that kids in ES need to learn how to do the things you listed. Many of us grew up without ever doing these things in school (because it don’t exist yet) and had no problem learning how when the time came. It’s not hard to make presentations. Now if schools were using computers to teach actual tech skills like coding, that would be useful.

A ton of people DO have problem learning basic tech when they didn't grow up with it. I would say about 15% of the workforce 45 and up. I encounter it all the time.

Dumb take. Our kids are growing up with it. They don't need to use it all day at school.

I didn't say that--just countering the person saying that we all learned just fine. I think children still need to be taught how to use technology productively though--scanning tiktok etc. doesn't translate to all tech.

And no one is saying they need to be using it all day--the posters who are fine with it are talking about 30 min a day in ES.

No one is complaining about 30 min a day. People are complaining about 2+ hours a day. Huge difference.

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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? Its 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.

Why are they on tech so much during non-school hours? You could make your home tech-free other than when necessary. No video games, no TV, no phones.

This. The amount of time kids are playing video games and/or on YouTube is ridiculous.

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? Its 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.

Why are they on tech so much during non-school hours? You could make your home tech-free other than when necessary. No video games, no TV, no phones.

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Kids need to know how to research, utilize programs, type, put together presentations. If kids don’t get these skills in late ES, middle and high school will be much more difficult. I am not saying they should be glued to a computer, but they should be utilized daily. One goal of school is preparing the workforce. Most jobs use computers daily.

If they actually learned to type, that would be useful. Sadly, they do not.
MS and HS is plenty of time for the extremely difficult task of learning how to put google images in slide shows.
They need to learn how to read, take notes, think about a topic, and organize their thoughts, draft, revise, etc. ALL of that is best done with real books and on paper. Using the "programs" is simple and can come much later.

If schools wanted to have one room with laptops where kids went for a special, that would be reasonable. They don't need laptops to learn. The laptops are detrimental to learning.

I am previous poster. They can learn how to read, think, draft, revise and also learn how to use technology. I don’t agree with all day technology usage as some posters are claiming, but technology is and will be a part of our society so education should include tech usage. Everything should be balanced. Schools should not look exactly the same as they did 50 years ago.

DP. Tech usage could be a lot more restricted than it is now and students could still learn those skills. Also, I don’t buy this idea that kids in ES need to learn how to do the things you listed. Many of us grew up without ever doing these things in school (because it don’t exist yet) and had no problem learning how when the time came. It’s not hard to make presentations. Now if schools were using computers to teach actual tech skills like coding, that would be useful.

A ton of people DO have problem learning basic tech when they didn't grow up with it. I would say about 15% of the workforce 45 and up. I encounter it all the time.

This. I know many working adults that don’t truly know how to use tech.

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Kids need to know how to research, utilize programs, type, put together presentations. If kids don’t get these skills in late ES, middle and high school will be much more difficult. I am not saying they should be glued to a computer, but they should be utilized daily. One goal of school is preparing the workforce. Most jobs use computers daily.

If they actually learned to type, that would be useful. Sadly, they do not.
MS and HS is plenty of time for the extremely difficult task of learning how to put google images in slide shows.
They need to learn how to read, take notes, think about a topic, and organize their thoughts, draft, revise, etc. ALL of that is best done with real books and on paper. Using the "programs" is simple and can come much later.

If schools wanted to have one room with laptops where kids went for a special, that would be reasonable. They don't need laptops to learn. The laptops are detrimental to learning.

I am previous poster. They can learn how to read, think, draft, revise and also learn how to use technology. I don’t agree with all day technology usage as some posters are claiming, but technology is and will be a part of our society so education should include tech usage. Everything should be balanced. Schools should not look exactly the same as they did 50 years ago.

You say that like you think people are lying?

No, I believe it. Just saying while I support tech usage, I don’t support kids being glued to a device all day. I think most day to day assignments should be paper/pencil but projects, research, publishing writing should be online.