Digital learning at school - a counterproductive threat

[Skybird]

This is a radio program by Deutschlandfunk Radio, so I fear only people understanding German can have value from this. Its an interview with a neural scientist who examines the effect of the often demanded (in Germany) digital competence initiative and calls for introducing WLAN and tablets at schools and base teaching methods on this. Problem is: students do not get better but worse by doing this, you train a generation "not of programmers but room cleaners" this way. He stresses that all international studies done on this issue showed a decline of learning successes and learned skills of around -20%. You cannot have a sensible debate with a little child abut how to raosnably and responsibly handling a sack full of sweets, the child only sees the sweets and wants them, and all debate you try is pointless. Its much the same with gojg digital as early as possible in schools and even kindergardens to raise "digital competence" and sensible handling of internet access - it just does nto work. Most acitvities done on the web, most content, is sex and crime, and that is deeply rooted in our biology that has juveniles and young people strictly under its influence. You canot argue there, you cannot expect that appeals and lectures will have the desired effect there.

Some good stuff to thik abotu and to put all this hysteria about digital achooling into perspetvie, this man is not just some digi-hater being on a crusade agaibst computers, he makes a very raosnable and solid mpression on me. He defends Mcron'S dcison that in te enar future smartphones will be banned at French schools, strictly. The empirical data, he says, shows that Macron is right, and school performances will go upwards if there is no digital gandets allowed anymore.

Some of what the man says, confirms my assessment that it all is a huge hysteria to be "in", to be "cool" by going "all digital". It nonsense. The mandess goes as far as that claims in favour of this demand go as far as basing on studies that do nto exist, or that have not even been pusblished and critically peer-reviewed. I oove it so much when scientific methdoogy gets corrupted for the career interests of the few or the propagating of a wanted Zeitgeist. It speaks not against science and its methdolog y - it speaks against how easily and willingly scientists allow themselves to get corrupted.

From the back corners of my memory: when the first PISA study was done over ten years ago, Finland was ranked first place, and everybody attributed that to the school system. What they forgot to take into account and what represents a massive, unforgivable methodological failure, was the circumstance that when PISA1 was done, it also was year 1 after a huge Finnish school reform. The statements of students how much they liked the schooling and learning, and the observation of how schools managed classes, represented this first year of the new system. But the knowledge level and competence levels of the students - were the result of the old system still, which was conservative and authoritarian, by comparison. The old system's success was attributed to a newborn baby of a refomred system! The students liked of couse that the pressure to learn was less, but their knowledge base and skills were not the result from that, but the authoritarian pressure on them to sit and learn stuff in the years and decades before. Since PISA-1, the Finnish ranks have steadily gone down. The results in learning success in the new system now make thmeselves felt realistically. And the whole thing got disenchanted meanwhile.

Another finding of PISA: a huge study from 2015 showed that everywhere where comuters were intrieuced on alrge sclae ats chools, performance of students and leanrign successes went into a head dive. Australia had entered the digital school 2008, and 2015 or so they had thrown the comuters out again becasue student had become so bad that they had no other choice than to set the emergency brake. Finland too has made terrible experiences with their digitlaization of schooling.

He also briefly touches on the health and psyhcic problems too much use of smartphones and social media casue, refering to stdies showign that girls have a diubling of the probability to develope depressions if they consume social media more than so and so much time over the day, the explosion of rates in shortsightenedness amongst young people in asian countires, and blood pressure issues. Its a complex matter.

This is the radio program, 10 minutes long. ITS IN GERMAN, I say it again.

http://srv.deutschlandradio.de/theme...=621324&state=