Trevor’s review of The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning -- And How To Help Them Thrive Again > Likes and Comments
37 likes · Like
I believe that learning normally occurs when we are in a trusting relationship with the person teaching us. Otherwise, anxiety gets in the way. But I guess being relaxed has different meanings - if being relaxed means not being anxious, that will clearly help learning. And none of these things are absolutes. I've learnt many things from watching video, things it would be impossible for me to have learnt otherwise.
I was talking to an architect the other day and mentioned having read a book years ago about the problems with Auto-CAD. The benefits of using it are very obvious. Rather than having to draw the same plan over and over again, the system does that work for you. But some architects have said that the repetition makes for better buildings, as you can get to see better solutions to problems, or even notice problems, in that repetitive work. It all comes back to the idea that new technologies come with benefits and costs - but we rarely think about the costs.
I agree about AI - the main problem is that I also think a lot of learning only happens upon lots and lots of graded repetition - but AI and other technologies seek to 'save time' by reducing the amount of repetition we do. And that has real costs.
The point about children associating screens with entertainment is important. When children are raised by screens at home and used to instant gratification, it can make it harder for kids to persevere through non-preferred tasks at school. I’m a school psych at an elementary school and the apps on the school iPads are all gamified, which takes away from academic learning.
It seems to me that children who are raised by an iPad from a young age can have significantly delayed milestones. I wonder how many of those kids receive a misdiagnosis of autism?
The book mentions how gamified apps are. I'm in two minds about this. There's an excellent (and old) book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture that is very interesting on this topic - but like all things, balance is all. I've also recently finished a book Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity that raises a similar concern that you do, Gabe, on deciding to diagnose autism.
also have become a bit of a luddite over the last few years, especially after reading ray bradbury’s work and comparing to our current society. as an example, “raised by an iPad” reminds me of the ray bradbury’s “The Veldt”.
(posted comment pre-maturely)
i work in tech and my ceo gave a talk last week on how great AI is going to be for our company and productivity. at the end of it, during the Q&A, one of my coworkers asked: in order to ensure the code AI spits out is not garbage and has no vulnerabilities, we as developers need to be really on top of our game and have deep knowledge about our craft, but we can’t build this with ai. this is applicable to existing engineers (muscles will atrophy) but even more urgent for new engineers who have only ever done work in a school environment. how do we balance?
our ceo gave a long winded answer that basically amounted to, “not sure, sorry, good luck.” people at the top def recognize the negative effects, and are just hoping ai advances quickly enough that, once people have forgotten what we had once learned, ai will be good enough to write flawless code. this very likely extends to computers in classrooms, too
Using the word craft is particularly interesting. Richard Sennett wrote a book on this called The Craftsman and basically said the history of capitalism is the history of the death of crafts. By that he meant that crafts take variable inputs and responds to them according to the variabilities they show. Capitalist products standardise inputs to ensure standardised outputs. There is no need for craft people since variations have been eliminated. Whether or not this can truly be done with computer code is well above my pay grade, but that has been the history of capitalism and it was fought against by crafts people from the start - hence the Luddites. The thing people forget about them is that it took wages about a century to return to the levels that existed prior to the introduction of the new technology.
I am a part-time substitute teacher and most recently, I was at a middle school in one of the wealthier areas of my city in which every classroom was fully stocked with a set of brand new laptops. As soon as I welcomed in the first period class and before I could even begin explaining what we'd be working on for the day, a student yells out "can I use the laptops?" Normally, I'd ask students to finish their work before they got to engage in independent technology time and this usually works well, but it was brought to my attention that their teacher usually allows computer use for the reading portion of their assignment, so I caved in. Worst mistake ever!! About two minutes into distributing the laptops, I heard tiktok videos, saw online games, and non-reading related activities on their screens. Given that I am a sub, the students don't usually respect me and this was the case here, they continued engaging in distracting activities, leaving little to no work done. If anything, there were a few students on task and more after I announced that we'd be having a discussion about the reading. What I saw at this school I have seen at all schools that have tech in the classroom. I agre that the issue may be tied to association. These students associate this device with leisurely consumption of media, and so that is the default role it begins to take on. I'm sure technology can play a positive role in a student's education, but that is if we retrain students to look at the device as an educational tool again. Of course this topic touches on other issues that explain why students form this kind of relationship with tech; for example, using tech to relax suggests that the pressures in and outside of school have forced the student to seek solace in mindless consumption of media. It really raises the question about the approaches to education we take. Kids no longer see education as an ends in and of itself. They no longer ask questions because they are curious. They now ask the questions they believe they are expected to ask in order to earn something. Something which our society has pushed upon them as the right thing: success, a degree, labor.
Someone says somewhere that economics can be defined by the phrase, people respond to incentives. We have made education about vocationalism. When I was studying to become a teacher I was told that the quickest way to ensure no student listens to what you are about to say was to start, "This won't be on the test". Deeply depressing.
Hi Trevor,
Since I work with educational technology I should clearly look at this, but I am doubtful about the general thesis you outline here. I'm sure it's true that bad educational technology will make kids stupider, but I think it's a huge stretch to say that all educational technology will make kids stupider, or that kids are getting stupider primarily because of using educational technology. If kids are getting stupider (possible, but I'd like to see solid evidence), a more obvious explanation is smartphones and social media, which are designed to be addictive and discourage many of them from learning to read properly.
A very interesting example of good educational technology that I've been experimenting with recently together with a friend is ChatGPT Pro Version, used in Voice Mode. My friend wanted help improving her German fluency, and asked if I could act as a conversation partner. I said my German wasn't anywhere near good enough, but if she wanted we could try doing regular sessions with the AI. We're both astonished to see how much it's helped us in just a couple of months. All we do is sit down and converse with it freely. The AI can talk about anything you want; it's polite, helpful, constructive, and quickly adjusted its grammar, vocabulary and speaking rate to ours, stretching us just a little bit. Contrary to what the authors of this book appear to be saying, we feel it's making us concentrate intensely. ChatGPT Pro Version is still too expensive for most people to want to get it for this purpose (I have it for coding), but the price of this kind of app will most likely come down.
It's less straightforward than it looks.
Yes, all a bit like Socrates being against writing - I'm quite certain that using AI can be very good for learning. I was at a seminar today and they were talking about how to use AI in assessment. There was a nice line where she said most people advise using AI to help you think and then you should do the writing yourself - but she said the opposite is much better. Do the thinking yourself and then get AI to help with the writing, from the limited data you've provided with your 'pre-thinking'. A project I'm working on is looking at using AI for academic feedback - but I've been surprised by how students and educators both think it is quite limited. Great for 'general' feedback - but not so good for course specific feedback - even if you feed in your assignment and the rubric. I do think people use it too often to outsource their thinking, which can't be a good thing. And you're a learner with mountains of experience in what will and won't help you learn - which isn't true of many young people. I think a big part of the problem is that the output is almost always coherent and logical and clear - and so, if you know next to nothing, it looks very authoritative - even if it is mostly nonsense. Neil Postman says somewhere that the main point of education is to give kids a bullshit detector - that seems to be becoming more urgent all of the time.
When I say 'limited data', I mean, that you've limited where AI should go looking for information - "use these quotes, following this structure, from these dot points that construct my argument".
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
I believe that learning normally occurs when we are in a trusting relationship with the person teaching us. Otherwise, anxiety gets in the way. But I guess being relaxed has different meanings - if being relaxed means not being anxious, that will clearly help learning. And none of these things are absolutes. I've learnt many things from watching video, things it would be impossible for me to have learnt otherwise. I was talking to an architect the other day and mentioned having read a book years ago about the problems with Auto-CAD. The benefits of using it are very obvious. Rather than having to draw the same plan over and over again, the system does that work for you. But some architects have said that the repetition makes for better buildings, as you can get to see better solutions to problems, or even notice problems, in that repetitive work. It all comes back to the idea that new technologies come with benefits and costs - but we rarely think about the costs.
I agree about AI - the main problem is that I also think a lot of learning only happens upon lots and lots of graded repetition - but AI and other technologies seek to 'save time' by reducing the amount of repetition we do. And that has real costs.
The point about children associating screens with entertainment is important. When children are raised by screens at home and used to instant gratification, it can make it harder for kids to persevere through non-preferred tasks at school. I’m a school psych at an elementary school and the apps on the school iPads are all gamified, which takes away from academic learning. It seems to me that children who are raised by an iPad from a young age can have significantly delayed milestones. I wonder how many of those kids receive a misdiagnosis of autism?
The book mentions how gamified apps are. I'm in two minds about this. There's an excellent (and old) book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture that is very interesting on this topic - but like all things, balance is all. I've also recently finished a book Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity that raises a similar concern that you do, Gabe, on deciding to diagnose autism.
also have become a bit of a luddite over the last few years, especially after reading ray bradbury’s work and comparing to our current society. as an example, “raised by an iPad” reminds me of the ray bradbury’s “The Veldt”.
(posted comment pre-maturely)i work in tech and my ceo gave a talk last week on how great AI is going to be for our company and productivity. at the end of it, during the Q&A, one of my coworkers asked: in order to ensure the code AI spits out is not garbage and has no vulnerabilities, we as developers need to be really on top of our game and have deep knowledge about our craft, but we can’t build this with ai. this is applicable to existing engineers (muscles will atrophy) but even more urgent for new engineers who have only ever done work in a school environment. how do we balance?
our ceo gave a long winded answer that basically amounted to, “not sure, sorry, good luck.” people at the top def recognize the negative effects, and are just hoping ai advances quickly enough that, once people have forgotten what we had once learned, ai will be good enough to write flawless code. this very likely extends to computers in classrooms, too
Using the word craft is particularly interesting. Richard Sennett wrote a book on this called The Craftsman and basically said the history of capitalism is the history of the death of crafts. By that he meant that crafts take variable inputs and responds to them according to the variabilities they show. Capitalist products standardise inputs to ensure standardised outputs. There is no need for craft people since variations have been eliminated. Whether or not this can truly be done with computer code is well above my pay grade, but that has been the history of capitalism and it was fought against by crafts people from the start - hence the Luddites. The thing people forget about them is that it took wages about a century to return to the levels that existed prior to the introduction of the new technology.
I am a part-time substitute teacher and most recently, I was at a middle school in one of the wealthier areas of my city in which every classroom was fully stocked with a set of brand new laptops. As soon as I welcomed in the first period class and before I could even begin explaining what we'd be working on for the day, a student yells out "can I use the laptops?" Normally, I'd ask students to finish their work before they got to engage in independent technology time and this usually works well, but it was brought to my attention that their teacher usually allows computer use for the reading portion of their assignment, so I caved in. Worst mistake ever!! About two minutes into distributing the laptops, I heard tiktok videos, saw online games, and non-reading related activities on their screens. Given that I am a sub, the students don't usually respect me and this was the case here, they continued engaging in distracting activities, leaving little to no work done. If anything, there were a few students on task and more after I announced that we'd be having a discussion about the reading. What I saw at this school I have seen at all schools that have tech in the classroom. I agre that the issue may be tied to association. These students associate this device with leisurely consumption of media, and so that is the default role it begins to take on. I'm sure technology can play a positive role in a student's education, but that is if we retrain students to look at the device as an educational tool again. Of course this topic touches on other issues that explain why students form this kind of relationship with tech; for example, using tech to relax suggests that the pressures in and outside of school have forced the student to seek solace in mindless consumption of media. It really raises the question about the approaches to education we take. Kids no longer see education as an ends in and of itself. They no longer ask questions because they are curious. They now ask the questions they believe they are expected to ask in order to earn something. Something which our society has pushed upon them as the right thing: success, a degree, labor.
Someone says somewhere that economics can be defined by the phrase, people respond to incentives. We have made education about vocationalism. When I was studying to become a teacher I was told that the quickest way to ensure no student listens to what you are about to say was to start, "This won't be on the test". Deeply depressing.
Hi Trevor,Since I work with educational technology I should clearly look at this, but I am doubtful about the general thesis you outline here. I'm sure it's true that bad educational technology will make kids stupider, but I think it's a huge stretch to say that all educational technology will make kids stupider, or that kids are getting stupider primarily because of using educational technology. If kids are getting stupider (possible, but I'd like to see solid evidence), a more obvious explanation is smartphones and social media, which are designed to be addictive and discourage many of them from learning to read properly.
A very interesting example of good educational technology that I've been experimenting with recently together with a friend is ChatGPT Pro Version, used in Voice Mode. My friend wanted help improving her German fluency, and asked if I could act as a conversation partner. I said my German wasn't anywhere near good enough, but if she wanted we could try doing regular sessions with the AI. We're both astonished to see how much it's helped us in just a couple of months. All we do is sit down and converse with it freely. The AI can talk about anything you want; it's polite, helpful, constructive, and quickly adjusted its grammar, vocabulary and speaking rate to ours, stretching us just a little bit. Contrary to what the authors of this book appear to be saying, we feel it's making us concentrate intensely. ChatGPT Pro Version is still too expensive for most people to want to get it for this purpose (I have it for coding), but the price of this kind of app will most likely come down.
It's less straightforward than it looks.
Yes, all a bit like Socrates being against writing - I'm quite certain that using AI can be very good for learning. I was at a seminar today and they were talking about how to use AI in assessment. There was a nice line where she said most people advise using AI to help you think and then you should do the writing yourself - but she said the opposite is much better. Do the thinking yourself and then get AI to help with the writing, from the limited data you've provided with your 'pre-thinking'. A project I'm working on is looking at using AI for academic feedback - but I've been surprised by how students and educators both think it is quite limited. Great for 'general' feedback - but not so good for course specific feedback - even if you feed in your assignment and the rubric. I do think people use it too often to outsource their thinking, which can't be a good thing. And you're a learner with mountains of experience in what will and won't help you learn - which isn't true of many young people. I think a big part of the problem is that the output is almost always coherent and logical and clear - and so, if you know next to nothing, it looks very authoritative - even if it is mostly nonsense. Neil Postman says somewhere that the main point of education is to give kids a bullshit detector - that seems to be becoming more urgent all of the time.
When I say 'limited data', I mean, that you've limited where AI should go looking for information - "use these quotes, following this structure, from these dot points that construct my argument".
I think maybe there is sense in that over facilitating can reduce human achievement and efficiency, in a broader and specific way. Like for instance, In a counterintuitive way contrary to the notion that CGI, for example, will focus all our efforts on the creative aspects instead of some of it being used to solve the technical…but does it? I think over facilitating in general lowers our appreciation for anything. But what how much is over? I mean it’s true that we have a lot of it today, but relatively even my generation (millennials) had more facilitation than boomers, and soon and so forth (I sometimes envy them and gen x in some ways).
Also I sense a threat to developing young minds from relying on Ai instead of their developing brains. I can’t imagine it being a trivial matter without severe consequences.