More than a decade has passed since Google and other tech companies started making big promises of personalized learning and improved academic performance by getting low-cost laptops into schools. That worked well for their sales departments, but not for taxpayers — it has cost billions of dollars — and especially not for students.
All the promised academic benefits of laptops in schools never materialized. Just the opposite: Student test scores have fallen to historic lows, as has college readiness. In some schools, students spend hours of valuable class time on YouTube and other social media channels. Teachers are too often reduced to IT monitors, frustrating them.
A growing body of research demonstrates the harms of excessive screen time for students, yet few districts have reviewed their policies on laptops — even as the prospect of AI in the classroom will mean more screen time, not less. Until more studies are done about AI’s impact on learning, greater caution is warranted.
Read more | BLOOMBERG