Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
lol, I mostly ditched textbooks in high school not to support technology, but because I was tired of carrying around huge books in my backpack, the bulk of which I wouldn’t even need on a daily basis. Lo and behold, even 14 years ago, I could find pdf versions of most of my textbooks, some of which were offered officially from the publisher for free via the school.
The problems are the enshittification of the internet, the attention economy and the superb lack of American educational system, not technology itself. Almost every university in the world is filled with the sounds of clacking keys from laptops, this isn’t 1984.
Comparing learning methods and then associating their benefits with the technology feels… fallacious.
For this reason I actually recommend a cheap Android tablet for digital note taking since it is well worth the price. I used to carry paper with me, but having the ability to quickly review notes across several classes (lectures and books) is a game changer. Need to know what was discussed last week? What you took on a topic? It’s very cumbersome with paper.
I feel like ‘technology’ is different when you actually own the tech you’re given. When you can do things with it. Not when it’s a digital casino in your pocket controlled by big corporations.
The text book industry inflated the cost of everything by making things huge, with mostly meaningless full color pictures everywhere. Go back 100 years and compare the size of a math book to present day. Math hasn’t changed a whole lot but the size and weight of the books certainly has.
From the article: "While teachers may be intending for these tools to be strictly educational, students often have different ideas. According to a 2014 study, which surveyed and observed 3,000 university students, students engaged in off-task activities on their computers nearly two-thirds of the time.
Horvath blamed this tendency to get off-track as a key contributor to technology hindering learning. When one’s attention is interrupted, it takes time to refocus. Task-switching also is associated with weaker memory formation and greater rates of error. Grappling with a challenging singular subject matter is hard, Horvath said. For the best learning to happen, it’s supposed to be."
The technology encourages task switching, which is detrimental in situations where one is supposed to focus on a single challenging task in order to optimize learning. So in this case, I’d say it’s the technology itself that is unsuitable for the task at hand. Clacking keys is fine, I went to university in the late nineties and computers were already an important part of my education. But I didn’t have access to the internet on a powerful pocketable device during lectures. The computers were in the computer rooms.
Yeah, makes sense. I “solved” that issue by still doing handwritten notes but then scanning them and converting them to digital notes afterwards.
That being said, I grew up in the 90s so I was never deprived of the skill of handwriting as a kid. It wasn’t until apple made touchscreens popular that shit kinda went downhill
Not OP, but when I hear this argument, a lot of schools wouldn’t let you go to your locker between all classes. That, or your classes were so far apart, you didn’t have time to go even get to your locker between them. There were some days I could only get to my locker once.
Well that’s why I ask, we had lockers, that were easy to access between classes with minimal planning. It just blows my mind how many people didn’t have a locker… My locker at work was even easy to access. I’m sorry y’all didn’t have a locker
My high school, among other interesting design decisions, didn’t have any lockers in the academic areas. So you had a locker that was way over by the gyms, or out by the shop classes, or if you were lucky in the cafeteria (because then you could at least stash your lunch in it).
The administration also seemed to be completely mystified as to why everyone carried around huge backpacks.
lol, I mostly ditched textbooks in high school not to support technology, but because I was tired of carrying around huge books in my backpack, the bulk of which I wouldn’t even need on a daily basis. Lo and behold, even 14 years ago, I could find pdf versions of most of my textbooks, some of which were offered officially from the publisher for free via the school.
The problems are the enshittification of the internet, the attention economy and the superb lack of American educational system, not technology itself. Almost every university in the world is filled with the sounds of clacking keys from laptops, this isn’t 1984.
Technology is part of it. For example, handwriting notes is proven to be better for information retention compared to typing.
Comparing learning methods and then associating their benefits with the technology feels… fallacious.
For this reason I actually recommend a cheap Android tablet for digital note taking since it is well worth the price. I used to carry paper with me, but having the ability to quickly review notes across several classes (lectures and books) is a game changer. Need to know what was discussed last week? What you took on a topic? It’s very cumbersome with paper.
I feel like ‘technology’ is different when you actually own the tech you’re given. When you can do things with it. Not when it’s a digital casino in your pocket controlled by big corporations.
The text book industry inflated the cost of everything by making things huge, with mostly meaningless full color pictures everywhere. Go back 100 years and compare the size of a math book to present day. Math hasn’t changed a whole lot but the size and weight of the books certainly has.
I have a few college “textbooks” from the 1930’s. They’re small
From the article: "While teachers may be intending for these tools to be strictly educational, students often have different ideas. According to a 2014 study, which surveyed and observed 3,000 university students, students engaged in off-task activities on their computers nearly two-thirds of the time.
Horvath blamed this tendency to get off-track as a key contributor to technology hindering learning. When one’s attention is interrupted, it takes time to refocus. Task-switching also is associated with weaker memory formation and greater rates of error. Grappling with a challenging singular subject matter is hard, Horvath said. For the best learning to happen, it’s supposed to be."
The technology encourages task switching, which is detrimental in situations where one is supposed to focus on a single challenging task in order to optimize learning. So in this case, I’d say it’s the technology itself that is unsuitable for the task at hand. Clacking keys is fine, I went to university in the late nineties and computers were already an important part of my education. But I didn’t have access to the internet on a powerful pocketable device during lectures. The computers were in the computer rooms.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the text books that are the issue but rather the physical act of writing your own notes.
I think it’s that now people type all their notes into a laptop rather than write it down.
Yeah, makes sense. I “solved” that issue by still doing handwritten notes but then scanning them and converting them to digital notes afterwards.
That being said, I grew up in the 90s so I was never deprived of the skill of handwriting as a kid. It wasn’t until apple made touchscreens popular that shit kinda went downhill
Did you not have a locker?
Not OP, but when I hear this argument, a lot of schools wouldn’t let you go to your locker between all classes. That, or your classes were so far apart, you didn’t have time to go even get to your locker between them. There were some days I could only get to my locker once.
Well that’s why I ask, we had lockers, that were easy to access between classes with minimal planning. It just blows my mind how many people didn’t have a locker… My locker at work was even easy to access. I’m sorry y’all didn’t have a locker
Yeah. I had a locker next to the school’s music room in the farthest corner once. Fun year.
My highschool, which I graduated mid 2010s, didn’t have lockers.
We had gym lockers, which was just to put our stuff for that one gym period, it wasn’t “our own”.
So, no. Not all highschools have lockers.
My high school didn’t have lockers. I assume mine isn’t the only one.
My high school, among other interesting design decisions, didn’t have any lockers in the academic areas. So you had a locker that was way over by the gyms, or out by the shop classes, or if you were lucky in the cafeteria (because then you could at least stash your lunch in it).
The administration also seemed to be completely mystified as to why everyone carried around huge backpacks.