Back to textbooks: Denmark rolls back digital learning • FRANCE 24 English

Libb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKoCZKtpS3Q

A great way to regain control by telling kids to use good old (text)books instead of digital reading in class, and by storing away their phones while in class. Helping them realize they can have a interesting (and exciting) time away from the screens and outside of social media. Also encouraging adults around them to show the example, using less screens themselves.

The sad part is that what was once considered common sense seems quite groundbreaking and a somewhat... difficult to apply idea. Still, no matter how difficult, I would love to see that happening in all other European countries, quick.

sga

Now this is one where i am kinda completely opposed - why?

like i do not understand why we can only see black or white - screens are good or screens are bad. for example, if i spend all my day reading scientific articles on a laptop screen, as opposed to watching ai generated short form videos, the "cognitive damage" is not same.

Why i support digital education is that if done right, it is really flexible and adaptive.

for example, paper books - you can forget them, you can tear them, oil spill can ruin it, etc.

a laptop with a touch screen and stylus - works as a notebook, all books that you can imagine, all kids can choose how their book "looks" like (maybe a accessible font for example).

if you buy such a laptop, once every 5 year, and basically teach good usage habits, it would not be much more expensive than giving each child separate books, or notebooks. If you are a good government, you would ideally put a foss os on it, and host your own nexcloud to give to them, make a digital library accessible to all, at all times. this is also solves the data privacy issues i hear as a con of digital infrastructure - you can choose open source stuff, and a nation can hire folks to host stuff, which is practically just as good in ux to closed solution.

I consider my screen usag unhealthy, because i can get 10+ hour usagee on bad days, but that is mostly for my bad posture of sitting. I usually do not consume "social" media, so i do not feel my screen usage is bad.

Libb

Thx, I agree with what you say but I also do not agree (a tool is rarely the issue, it can be but often it's the way we use it). Allow me to explain.

like i do not understand why we can only see black or white - screens are good or screens are bad.

I don't think it is a B&W vision. For one thing they don't want to ban screens. They want to go back to printed book in class. And kids still have a life outside of class.

They only decided screens were not the best medium to teach in class. That's not seeing things in B&W, that is saying: we have an issue we did not have prior and, in all parameters we can observe, here are the ones that were changing when the issues arose.

If that was B&W, shouldn't you agree that forcing screens in schools is also seeing things in B&W: no good teaching can be achieved without using high-tech.

a laptop with a touch screen and stylus - works as a notebook,

That remains to be demonstrated. They mimic it. They are not equals.

Not considering the complexity layer (no need to update, charge, turn on/off a paper or a print book, or to login & to launch an app to finally be able to use it), I can think of a few other things worth considering:

a screen is a light emitting tech vs paper which is a light reflecting tech (how that emitted light impacts brain (or not) and increase fatigue.
Next to the stylus, which is not the most widely used in class as far as I can understand, there is the keyboard. There are a few studies that points to a weaker memorization & understanding of whatever is being written down compared to longhand.
Keyboard is so everywhere in schools that we are now in the process of not teaching kids handwriting anymore. Like, really?
The (lack of) privacy. The constant monitoring and spying of kids while they're reading/learning. Tracking that is not only from the school (which is already bad) but also by private corporations, most of them being US... which most of the world is not.
The lack of standardization. I mean, I learned to write longhand in the early 70s and I've not needed to relearn it ever. Compare that to learning a new keyboard layout, a new UI in an app (hello, MS Word's Ribbon), or a new version of the OS (that is being updated and changed for the sole purpose of making it more exciting to people), or even with changing OS completely.
Longevity. That is obviously less of a concern for kids going to school, but it should be to their parents and all citizen financing public education, imho. I still use today a few fountain pens that I've been using since the 80s and, to make a parallel with keyboards, I also still use a typewriter that was my grandfather’s. That seems silly and meaningless but I don’t think it is: it contributes in shaping another relation to tech, one that sees tech as a mere tool among many others and not the ‘solve everything’ magical wand it is now considered. A different relation that is less focused on needing to own the newest latest tech but on how better use whatever we already have, and in doing so creating less waste and giving less power to the corporations owning said tech, too.
Another that should never be a concern for any kid ever, but should worry adults around them: cost. Replacing a broken pen, a book, or some sheet of paper is cheap and instant. Not so much with a computer/tablet. Heck, not even a stylus is ‘pencil cheap’.

But I insist, I would like to read studies showing using a tablet/stylus is akin to using pen and paper in terms of memorizing/understanding whatever is being taught by the teacher. Closer to it, I would happily agree but similar? I would first like to read studies.

if you buy such a laptop, once every 5 year, and basically teach good usage habits, it would not be much more expensive than giving each child separate books, or notebooks.

I don't understand that.

I mean, a textbook is say 50€ (not considering bulk purchase) and the kids doesn't even need to own that book, the school can purchase them and rent them to the kids for the time required to use that textbook, and then the kid gives it back and it would still be perfectly usable for the next kid to use (if not, parents of the previous kid should have to pay a fee for the damaging of that book that would still cost nothing like buying a new computer).
Writing longhand cost nothing. 1 liter of school grade ink (Pelikan) will cost less than 40€. And one liter of ink is enough to write, what, a hundred thousand pages? Fifty thousand? In any case lot more than what any kid will write in the years they spend learning to write and read
Access to other books (novels) and other readings? They can be accessed for free thanks to public libraries (and school libraries). And if that is not an option they can all be found used (and new) for much cheaper than any textbook. And then, after use, they can be sold used and can be resold after that too (try that with ebooks). As a side a benefit, the better the condition of that used book the better its resale price, which may encourage kids/parents to take good care of what they use.

Not so much with a computer that costs a lot more to purchase, that needs much more regular updates and upgrades. And since there is no upgrade of anything allowed anymore, that often means to buy a new computer.

Computers are also a lot more fragile than books. I mean, I can and I do regularly read books that were printed in the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries. Obviously, they're are not in mint conditions and they can be fragile due to old age (not systematically, though) but they still fully do their job even after centuries of use. Compared that to say, browsing the Web on a 15+ years old laptop? If it is less an issue when running Linux (which is not what most schools use, right?) it’s still a lackluster experience because of the lack of CPU power/ram… that are required in order to load not the actual content but the ever increasing shit ton of tracking scripts and ads (and purely visual effects scripts) on almost every single web pages there is. Scripts that are pushed forward by similar (if not the same, looking at you Google) corporations that sell the computers/tablets kids are required to be using in class (how convenient).
Also, the laptop/tablet battery will quickly age and won’t hold a charge anymore making that laptop/tablet a… desktop, tied to a power outlet.

I usually do not consume “social” media, so i do not feel my screen usage is bad.

I don't either. But it is not about you, or I. It’s about us, on average. And what is that average us doing?

Also, even though many of us are not consuming social media turds, I cannot not notice the increasing numbers of young people that are barely able to read (or a lot less easily, and always shorter and simpler texts), and how they are not even able to write properly anymore. I’m not referring to them making spelling mistakes, that’s not an issue, I’m referring to their ability to construct meaningful sentences.

How is one expected to be able to hear and to express nuanced thoughts and ideas if they can’t even read and write proper sentences? Once again, spelling mistake are a non-issue for the most part, the lack of grammar is.

I’m not saying kids should be taught Latin and Greek in class, like we used to (I would like to, even though I hated it with all my heart back then), but I think they should at the very least be properly taught to read and to write in their native language (that would be French, for me, so pardon my poor English) and in at least one other foreign language.

Imho, that failing at reading and writing, and at understanding and expressing ideas, is what those people noticed too. And that's what they're trying to fight against.

Which is great news we should all support even if there is no certainty they’re doing it the right way. Maybe future will tell us the screen (and the keyboard) were not the issue, and that handwriting, using pen and paper, was not the best solution either? I don’t known.

What I do know is that there is real issue, quickly growing and intensely spreading. And that it's hard to not notice that learning/teaching has collapsed almost everywhere where teaching/learning has become 'digital' and at the same time where screens have become so prevalent. And not just in the class, btw: screens are everywhere. So, I insist: it is only about changing kid’s habits in school. Those kids will still have more than enough opportunities to access screens everywhere else.

To be completely honest with you, I’m not sure forcing books in schools will solve the whole issue either: I think it will help a lot kids get a better education but the main issue, to me, is that those kids are observing adults around them and, quite normally, they’re copying them.

And what do they copy us doing? Us not using books.

They see adults wasting their lives on screens (be it TV, streaming, social media, YT or TikTok, playing games, and so on). None of that being an issue in itself, the fact this mostly is only that becomes the issue.

A (silly?) example?

Most of us have probably watched the ‘Lord of the Rings’, right? Some more than once, too? Now, how many of us have read the books? And and realized how not the same and a lot less… nuanced and articulated Jackson’s adaptation is compared to Tolkien’s masterpiece (and I say that as someone who is not even a fan of Tolkien, btw)?

Kids will do what they see adults around do. Be it to constantly hate on people that are different to them (or don’t share their world view), or to become addicted to their screens.

sga

thanks for a long, well thought reply, though i also disagree with you on a lot of things.

If that was B&W, shouldn’t you agree that forcing screens in schools is also seeing things in B&W: no good teaching can be achieved without using high-tech.

I am not saying it is hi tech or low tech. I have been taught primarily on white/black boards (third world country), and in college was thee first time that we had presentations or digital drawing boards. I know it can be taught the old way, because that is how i was taught, but here is why i feel digital can be done better

teachers can be creative - you have infinite canvas - you can write as much as you want, you can show 3d visualisations which you for practical purposes can not with drawings - it is tedious.
students can focus on learning instead of copying the board - I have seen that a lot of students have always just copied what teacher says or writes, and consider that attending a class. I know it is partially teeacher's fault for not being interactive, but when you can actually focus on listening, and do not have a rac against time.
sudents who miss the class are no longer 3rd world, they still get the same information, obviously not the same as attending in person, but this is the best you can get unless you record all lectures always.

I in my last 2 years started typing my college lecture notes instead of hand writing them. problems with me are that - i have a really bad hand writing (just because i learned writing cursive, does not mean i write nicely. i mad a deliberate switch around 8th grade to never write cursive again because my cursive was so bad. and my current writing is still so bad). I also share my notes with a lot of students, and it is much easier to have a digital file, in a folder, which i can sync to a shared folder, which is shared with others. It improves my typing, and also improves my typesetting skills. for diagrams, i mostly draw with touchpad, and it takes more time for me to draw in the beginning, but for example in my case, in physics, a lot of our diagrams iterate over others, so i can start with a copy of my older diagram, and then save time.

They mimic it. They are not equals.

why do they have to. consider this. before reading and writing was something almost everyone did, people used to hear stories from elders or lecterns or a priest. that involved different skills. you had to understand the expressions, intonations, and pauses. I as a person whose primary method of "consuming" stuff is reading, am very bad at understanding pauses. for a lot of poems, just reading them does not feel "special", just rhyming, but when heard, it is like whole different experience.
a lot of what people want to replicate the hand writing in digital world is involving multiple senses. for example, when you hand write, you feel the paper, you feel different amount of "touch/pain" for writing different letters or numbers, and almost all your senses are involved (except of taste and smell maybe). you feel what you wrote. you can feel the differencee between the letters written when you are less tired vs more tired, or when writing somethign difficult.

I understand you do not get the same thing with typing. I can tell you that, even if it hurts my arguments, but it is not that much worse. you still see stuff, you can also tell tiredness with mis-spelled words. maybe not the paper friction, or your hand being chafed, but maybe that is a good thing.

(how that emitted light impacts brain (or not) and increase fatigue.

this is one of the common "myths" i think people have. yes most screen are self emmisive (unless you use e-ink, then it is also reflective), but there have not been conclusive findings on fatigue. what you can have is too white or too bright, or you can have disturbed circadian rythm. but you can changed color temperature of screen, or choose to reduce brightness.

The (lack of) privacy.

I am not going to speak about anything privacy related - it is a solved problem - use foss software. it is there, you can choose to use it. you can choose not to buy windows or apple or google ecosystem.

Compare that to learning a new keyboard layout

is that a thing? i never had to learn a different layout, the qwerty remains the same. or are you talking about other keys changing - even then, you can choose not to buy bespoke hardware with custom key layouts.

also with handwriting - does that not depend on what you use to write - pencils (and different grades like 1B, 2B, 4F require different strengths to hold or pressure to apply), pens (ball point, gel, fountain, or something else) or even with same kind, with each model of each brand, how and where you grip, how much pressure you apply changes. you can choose to buy same pen/pencil for your life, but so can you choose to buy a keyboard.

a new UI in an app (hello, MS Word’s Ribbon)

use foss stuff where you get to choose ui. or you can even make one if you like none of the existing things.

new version of the OS

i hate windows and macos for ruining updates. I use rolling distros (constantly updating) and i look forward to updates. in foss world, updates mean new features or better performance, or ease of use. I have a system that i have designed (in notebook - handwwriting design - think of it as choose what paper you use, or how your noteebook is bound or what the sleeves are made of. some people (me) prefer spiral bound, some prefer strung/stapled).

Longevity

i have 12-13 year old laptop still working, a 6-7 year old one still working. a 3 year old one which failed because of outer body failing, because of my stupidity, but still functional as a server, and my current laptop is a year old. I think in these 13 years, going through 4 laptops may be oon higher side than average population, but in one year, i can go through about 1500-2000 pages of notebook very easily. now add books. and i (and my family) have always chosen to use second hand or lent books because of financial reasons, but still th amount of paper used in all this is a lot.

consider this. my laptop at idle consumes 2-3 W of power. on video playback with wifi and bluetooth - 5 W. If i use paper and books (not self emmisive) - i atleast need a bulb. depeending on how big my room is or how direct the lighting is, youu need 10-20W LEDs for illumination. Yes you can go out and read in sun, but that may not be out, or there are clouds, or it is too hot or too cold. Energy savings can happen with this.

paper is cheap and instant

(and the following few points about cost)

it is not. i have come from point where we would tar blank pages from used notebooks (still do) to reduce waste or reducee costs. buying a notebook, lets say a 200 page noteebook for 1$ (i do not know how are they priceed where you live). I for 1 course, depending on content and duration, can go through 0.5-1.5 or 2 notebooks, lets consider an average of 1. in my school times, i would use 5-6 notebooks each year (maybe 2 for maths because of longer problems). for 5 years, that is 551 = 25$. that is very less, but consider this. second hand books - with 5$ for 1 book and 5 books a year (in college courses, i may use more than 5 books for a single course, but they can be lent from library, so still considering 5 books), and 5$ for cost (rental or secondhand or photostats), that is 555 = 125$. in total that is 150$. my current laptop is 450$ 8 core 24 gib ram 512gib storage, and decent build. yes that is still 3x more expensive, but that is not a chap and instant vs expensive and slow thing. it is quantisable. and this is consider a well spec'd laptop, you can go 4 core, 8gib ram, 128/256 gib storage, and you can get it down by 100$ more.

that needs much more regular updates and upgrades.

again with updates -- how badly have MS or appl messed people's expectation of updates. people in other spheres do not get afraid of updates - your steel bars can now hold 1.5 more load because we changed alloying composition - oh great. your cpu performs 10% better because of new vulkan updates - oh great. in ms apple owrld - your notepad may or may not use ai to analyse sentiments of your random vegetable list, and use 20% gpu/npu to find spelling mistakes, where th usual/older dictionary spell checks used 0.5% cpu, which was optional.

Again - use foss software and updates become good.

browsing the Web on a 15+ years old laptop?

you can choose to use 15 year old websites - like wiki and lemmy (not 15 year old, but designed with same principles). the way you do not expect 200 year old physics book to explain QM to you (it was not yet formulated), you should not expect your 15 year old laptop to run modern AAA websites. or if you want to watch youtube on it, do it the way we did 15 years ago - download video -play with video player. or use a lighter youtube client. you can not really blame poor laptop for not bing as performative, as you do not blame old books for not having modern information.

which is not what most schools use, right?

chrome os is linux, so most schools these days by "linux" laptops. yes chrome os is not as flexible as "usual" linux, but it is still performant.

ever increasing shit ton of tracking scripts and ads (and purely visual effects scripts)

these are again complaints of closed platforms. In my mind if a school or state/district or country chooses to provide digital hardware, it is there responsibility to select suitable software.

they way it is responsibility to not havee "cheesy magzines" in school library, you should have a content blocker (ublock origin) to block these.

making that laptop/tablet a… desktop, tied to a power outlet

most laptops (basically anything thicker than 2 cm) has a replaceable battery. you can just do that. again modern apple design principle of sticking/soldering things is stupid.

my older laptops could not hold charge either, i got batteries changed for 10-15$. the way a old book requires restoration, you need to take care of laptop.

if it is not touch screen (most laptops are not), you can buy a 30-40$ sketching tablet, that is connected simply via usb. You can upgrade laptops. (i replace hard drives on my old laptop with a ssd, and it feels like 50% better in responsiveness, even with 10 year old cpu).

I cannot not notice the increasing numbers of young people that are barely able to read

this is not a laptop/notebook problem. it is problem of only consuming information through videos, with subway surfers playing beneath, someone dancing on top, and relevant info on the corner. as you said, screens are not restricted for personal use, where they actually should consider better educating the children. instead, we restrict the laptops in classes. an equivalent situation some 80-50 years ago would be banning of newspapers, because people are only reading cartoons, or the cheesey magzines, because they all use same medium.

consider this - you wrote some 1000 word reply, to which i wrote 1000 more. neither of us would likely even write a 50 word letter to each other, just because we are very less likely to meet irl. if we restrict th good parts of tech, just because bad exists, it would restrict people like you and me from debating. I still consider this productive - we both are using our minds. screen is just a medium.

where teaching/learning has become ‘digital’ and at the same time where screens have become so prevalent

no and yes. in my third world country - still only like 40% people have screens. women even less. kids are practically just as bad (you can say that is because of lack of screens), but it is not because the kid has screen. it is because of what kid watches on screens.

i am very pro choice - govt/schools should not restrict what kids watch - that is parents responsibility.

They see adults wasting their lives on screens (be it TV, streaming, social media, YT or TikTok, playing games, and so on). None of that being an issue in itself, the fact this mostly is only that becomes the issue.

now that is problem with adults. if they see adults reading on screens, they would do that.

Most of us have probably watched the ‘Lord of the Rings’, right?

I have not, but mostly because i do not watch much stuff, and english stuff is a small section of small pie. Hence I can not comment on anything about writing.

But I understand the general principle - manga vs anime, book vs movie adaptation, it is often the case that for a nice source, the adaptation is not as good.

Kids will do what they see adults around do. Be it to constantly hate on people that are different to them (or don’t share their world view), or to become addicted to their screens.

so i consider my self addicted to screens - yes, but whenever i think of any specific thing, i do not feel it is addiction. i read articles, i do some work stuff, i read forums, i watch youtube (educational as well as entertainment). In that sense, I do not find screens bad, as i see them as a flexible window to larger world.

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Back to textbooks: Denmark rolls back digital learning • FRANCE 24 English