it seems incredibly short sighted to bar students from something that exists in the world, that they will need to interact with and be aware of in the future.
also, LLMs are great at summarizing knowledge, which is likely a better fit for earlier stages of education, rather than later forms, to instill some sense of interest.
are students actually having issues discerning real people from LLMs in NYC? did they explore that before coming up with this program or is this signaling? the article is scant on these details, which is unfortunate.
"The new mandate also includes restrictions on the use of individual laptops and tablets. Students in preschool through second grade will no longer be able to use individual devices at all, while older elementary school students will face time limits of 30 to 45 minutes a day. But exceptions will reportedly be made for students who are actively learning English or are living with disabilities, as well as for the use of coding software."
without citing evidence that does anything at all, that comes across as luddite levels of hope that putting kids in information jail will do something special that'll make them "better" somehow.
pretty much anyone on this forum who is older than 30 should remember these dumb jails that did nothing but frustrate students when they attempted to get access to information.
i was writing "code" when i was in 4th grade >30 years ago, and if i had these restrictions in school, relative to what exists today, i wouldn't have been.
It’s pretty easy to tell kids whose parents let them have devices over the past decade from those who, with the benefit of hindsight, actually parented.
I suspect the former probably used the same “short sighted” motivated reasoning to excuse what, with the benefit of hindsight, looks like laziness. In return, their kids are neurologically stunted to the point of having little to no functional attention span.
> without citing evidence
For devices? We have tonnes of evidence in kids with versus without devices. Especially at the elementary-school age.
If you want a starker contrast, it’s this: rich communities don’t have devices in schools. Poor ones do.
We don’t yet have the long-term data for AI. But the same folks who were pushing laptops in classrooms and smartphones for five-year olds (and NFTs for poor people) are now pushing this FOMO.
i live in ny. there are still "devices" in schools in rich and poor communities. many have "banned" personal devices, but that isn't really meaningful for this discussion.
this is about banning existing technology for material in teaching.
> We have tonnes of evidence in kids with versus without devices
that is a blanket statement, wrt to device time (i assume without you specifying), and is not what is being discussed in this article, and more of the fear mongering that leads to these outcomes
> i live in ny. there are still "devices" in schools in rich and poor communities
It’s a very clear trend line that isn’t disproven with individual counter-examples. (Poor communities don’t have the student-teacher ratios to enforce bans, for one.)
> many have "banned" personal devices, but that isn't really meaningful for this discussion
How isn’t banning harmful, novel devices not meaningful to a discussion about another novel technology being pushed into classrooms by the same people who pushed the devices?
> this is about banning existing technology for material in teaching
…devices are existing technology.
> that is a blanket statement, wrt to device time
I’m making an analogy. Lots of parents unwittingly compromised their kids because they were afraid if they didn’t have a phone in elementary school they’d get left behind. There was limited evidence of benefits in a sea of FOMO. The situation with AI looks similar, down to the people arguing for putting AI in classrooms.
it seems incredibly short sighted to bar students from something that exists in the world, that they will need to interact with and be aware of in the future.
also, LLMs are great at summarizing knowledge, which is likely a better fit for earlier stages of education, rather than later forms, to instill some sense of interest.
are students actually having issues discerning real people from LLMs in NYC? did they explore that before coming up with this program or is this signaling? the article is scant on these details, which is unfortunate.
"The new mandate also includes restrictions on the use of individual laptops and tablets. Students in preschool through second grade will no longer be able to use individual devices at all, while older elementary school students will face time limits of 30 to 45 minutes a day. But exceptions will reportedly be made for students who are actively learning English or are living with disabilities, as well as for the use of coding software."
without citing evidence that does anything at all, that comes across as luddite levels of hope that putting kids in information jail will do something special that'll make them "better" somehow.
pretty much anyone on this forum who is older than 30 should remember these dumb jails that did nothing but frustrate students when they attempted to get access to information.
i was writing "code" when i was in 4th grade >30 years ago, and if i had these restrictions in school, relative to what exists today, i wouldn't have been.
you cannot fight the future this way.
It’s pretty easy to tell kids whose parents let them have devices over the past decade from those who, with the benefit of hindsight, actually parented.
I suspect the former probably used the same “short sighted” motivated reasoning to excuse what, with the benefit of hindsight, looks like laziness. In return, their kids are neurologically stunted to the point of having little to no functional attention span.
> without citing evidence
For devices? We have tonnes of evidence in kids with versus without devices. Especially at the elementary-school age.
If you want a starker contrast, it’s this: rich communities don’t have devices in schools. Poor ones do.
We don’t yet have the long-term data for AI. But the same folks who were pushing laptops in classrooms and smartphones for five-year olds (and NFTs for poor people) are now pushing this FOMO.
i live in ny. there are still "devices" in schools in rich and poor communities. many have "banned" personal devices, but that isn't really meaningful for this discussion.
this is about banning existing technology for material in teaching.
> We have tonnes of evidence in kids with versus without devices
that is a blanket statement, wrt to device time (i assume without you specifying), and is not what is being discussed in this article, and more of the fear mongering that leads to these outcomes
> i live in ny. there are still "devices" in schools in rich and poor communities
It’s a very clear trend line that isn’t disproven with individual counter-examples. (Poor communities don’t have the student-teacher ratios to enforce bans, for one.)
> many have "banned" personal devices, but that isn't really meaningful for this discussion
How isn’t banning harmful, novel devices not meaningful to a discussion about another novel technology being pushed into classrooms by the same people who pushed the devices?
> this is about banning existing technology for material in teaching
…devices are existing technology.
> that is a blanket statement, wrt to device time
I’m making an analogy. Lots of parents unwittingly compromised their kids because they were afraid if they didn’t have a phone in elementary school they’d get left behind. There was limited evidence of benefits in a sea of FOMO. The situation with AI looks similar, down to the people arguing for putting AI in classrooms.