You might think so. But sadly there’s increasing evidence to the contrary.
eg:
Did you read any of these?
UNITED NATIONS REPORT: LITTLE EVIDENCE THAT DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTS EDUCATION AND EXCESSIVE SCREENTIME IS HARMFUL TO CHILDREN
(their shouty caps not mine) ehtrust.org/united-nations-report-little-evidence-that-digital-technology-supports-education-and-excessive-screentime-is-harmful-to-children/
This report was based solely on digital learning during the pandemic. It states clearly there is not enough information to draw meaningful conclusions. Worth mentioning also, it is a global report which means that the impacts on education in the U.K. do not necessarily reflect the global picture.
The conclusion it did draw was around the disparity of learning among those who did not have the means to engage in online learning. It is true that children from poorer backgrounds did far worse during Covid partly from a lack of access but also because they were less likely to have a parent engaged in their learning, given far lower numbers of people living in poverty were able to work from home.
The poverty gap is nothing new, and those children were doing less well prior to digital learning and will likely continue to unless governments do something to improve the lives of people living in poverty. The Scottish Government provides devices for all children, so the digital gap is far smaller and resolves many of the issues spoken about in that report.
An ed-tech tragedy? Educational technologies and school closures in the time of COVID-19
This paper also focussed on remote learning, the absence of face to face teacher time. Its title also makes it clear it is about school closures. I don’t think anybody denies this was not a good situation for many pupils (although also worth noting many did thrive in the environment)
The outcomes attributed to this were as much a factor of Covid lockdowns as it was the increases reliance on tech at that time.
Interestingly Finland and Sweden, which are both feted as countries with very high educational standards, are now ditching devices in the classroom and reverting to a paper-based education.
There is no widespread, government backed return to pen and paper. Indeed the only reference to this is a news story about 1 town in Finland rejecting digital learning. The current references to the Scandi nations ditching tech are around the use of smartphones in class. This is an entirely different issue from young people having digital learning during class. My daughter’s school also bans smartphones, but they access digital learning on council provided iPads. My friend’s children in Sweden learn in the same way.
In all reports I keep seeing references to a 2023 “statement” from the Karolinska Institute. When looking for this statement in their archives, I couldn’t find it. What I did find was many other references about the benefits of digital learning, and also many more references to their own courses, all of which rely heavily on digital learning.
www.thetimes.com/article/d11cd6f5-8327-4875-9403-c35de3824d5c?shareToken=fecf8eba085eceeaadac2fb2bc97bfb9
See also “Jonathan Haidt: ‘Anything you do digital in schools is worse“
Opinion pieces with scant evidence. One of which comes from a guy with a book to sell on the subject.
www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/jonathan-haidt-digital-worse-technology-in-schools-children-and-ph
An opinion piece, discussing Haight’s book. The piece also says this “However, Haidt’s claims and proposals have been stridently challenged by academics who are expert in the fields that The Anxious Generation touched upon. Indeed, such has been the strength of the rebuke to his book that Haidt has penned frequent defences of his position using his blog and articles.”
Children need ICT lessons, they absolutely do not need to do any other learning using computers.
Children need to learn lots of things. There is no evidence at all that learning using tech is sub standard.
Even if you want to study a computer science degree, many universities prefer you NOT to have done A Level computer science (or don’t care if you’ve done it).
Where is the evidence for this? Incidentally, my husband who hires people to work in IT prefers they don’t have a degree either, but that’s because of the quality and relevance of teaching rather than anything else.
At school we had ICT lessons, and I learned to touch type but that was the extent to which IT was used in the classroom. I’ve easily picked up all the additional IT skills I’ve needed as an adult (and I work in a role that involves a lot of specialist IT).
There are an abundance of skills I have picked up as an adult that I wasn’t taught at school. But having young people come in to my workplace already tech savvy and able to use the basic office software has meant I can concentrate on teaching them the job specific skills they need rather than spending time teaching them how to use excel and word.
As for your comment about lovely cursive handwriting, there is also clear evidence that learning is more effective when you take handwritten notes than if you type them, eg:
www.psychiatrist.com/news/handwriting-shows-unexpected-benefits-over-typing/
This piece relates to a single study, on children between the ages of two and five. It notes there is a very short term retention of the ability to remember single letters depending on whether they were types or handwritten. The introduction to this study cites others which claim hand writing is better, but also says “However, subsequent studies did not confirm the advantage of the handwriting method (Vaughn et al., 1992, Vaughn et al., 1993). The results obtained in these studies showed that children’s word writing and recognition performances were not affected when they had used a typing method”
The evidence is far from clear.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11943480/
From the above “These findings indicate that the differences between handwriting and typing are not solely dependent on motor execution but are also influenced by user experience, experimental methodology, and the type of writing device employed. The data reviewed suggest that handwriting and typing engage overlapping yet distinct neural networks” The rest of the report talks about how these things may be a benefit.
I get this is a passion of yours and using terms like “Peer reviewed” makes it sound like you are all over the science, and all those important looking links make it seem you have a slam dunk. However, nothing you have posted falls into the category of a properly peer reviewed study which concludes definitively that the use of tech for teaching is a net negative for young people. Most of it is a series of links which simply point to each other.
Maybe you didn’t read it all. Maybe you thought nobody else would. Maybe you wanted to do a froth inducing “all tech is bad” post, I don’t know. Until you are able to properly support your stance with actual evidence (which doesn’t exist) it’s probably best to refrain from posting links which do nothing to support what you are saying.
My own view is there is a place in education for both and when the education departments actually start to get on board with bringing the curriculum into the 21st century, that’s to be applauded. Making sure we are gathering data to review how well our education system is doing and why, is a good thing to do. Sadly, it isn’t happening so we actually have no idea why our young people have been subjected to declining standards in education since long before we started using tech in classrooms.