this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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176
In 2009, Sweden Replaced Textbooks with Screens: 15 Years Later, It’s Spending $120M to Bring Them Back (indiandefencereview.com)
submitted 21 hours ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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[–] Kodama@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago

Great, I say, with kids in middle school, here in Sweden. Problem has not been the hardware,

Partly software, due to it is shit "it must be cheap". Example, where I failed the test, the word training software provided me with the word for "Farfar" which is specific for dads father in Swedish, I wrote grandfather..."wrong" it is grandad... Ok let's try again...Granddad..."wrong" it shall be "grandad" No development. It is as dumb as 1998 bash code..

But first and foremost... The process, the school organisation does not have a single way of communicating to the kids, in our school, each teacher used different platforms to communicate to the kids ie teams, WhatsApp mail etc. They did not understand or like the provided software they should use etc.computer system knowledge is at a very low level. I blame the organism behind the main keyboard, most teachers does not have the right competency to teach with the tool at hand.

You have a beautiful tool that can hold worlds knowledge, but it means shit when the mentor does not know or even refuse to embrace the the tool and develop how to use, it then it does not help.

It like taking driving lessons from a persons that has only handled a horse.

[–] greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo 33 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Can we get a source more swedish than "Indian Defense Review"?

[–] 5715@feddit.org 10 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe we should compromise and look for a Georgian source

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 12 hours ago

Apparently it's back to cursive as well.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 22 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly I think there is room for a middle ground. E-Ink tablets. I remember all the backbreaking heavy books I had to carry as a kid and don’t want my nieces and nephews dealing with that but the current screen time is not great either. E-ink has inherent limitations that make it a poor fit for all the worst parts of the tech industry but great for this.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 9 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

It still doesn’t solve the part where it’s not a book. As a CS major a lot of my books went digital early on. I can say from experience that there’s something about having to press a button to go to turn the page that makes it far less intuitive and harder to research in. Regardless of E ink or laptop or whatever.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

ctrl+f made life much easier for me

[–] Majoran@feddit.org 7 points 16 hours ago

I acquired two academical degrees: First in Computer Science, later in Philosophy. It became my firmest standpoint that books are absolutely underrated.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The sorts of computers kids should be using are things like Raspberry Pis, and they should be using them to learn about computing itself, not just using a word processor for their homework or whatever.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Why? Some kids, maybe, but it's pretty useless for 99% of people. Kids should be taking media literacy classes.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I have a whole schpiel I could get into about it, but I'm busy so the TL;DR is that the whole point of a computer is its programmability -- its ability to solve novel, bespoke problems that are unique to a single user's needs. That means you're not actually "computer literate" unless you can program, or at least pipe together some console commands or figure out a novel workflow in a collection of GUI apps or whatever. It's not about touch-typing or rote memorization of specific functions in common apps; it's about developing general-purpose problem-solving skills. Those are valuable for everyone, not just professional software engineers.

Plus, knowing at least a little bit about how computers work is increasingly crucial in terms of understanding things like, say, the limitations of LLMs. That, I hope you can agree, is important for much the same reasons media literacy is.

[–] ascend@lemmy.radio 3 points 18 hours ago

They hardly even use the hardware at all, its all on google drive and canvas or whatever now

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 6 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I've never seen someone stop while walking on a stair case to pull out a book.

[–] brie_cheese@piefed.ca 9 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

ive never seen someone break 'staircase' into two words.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago

Word splitting and joining is a source of confusion these days. It's like a "stair case" is part of a contingency plan that may also have a "ladder case".

But the kids with the "atleast", "aswell", "incase", etc; that's even more confusing.

[–] HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social 7 points 19 hours ago

lol this reminds me of that time on chemistry class, one of the guys who didn't want to be there asked the teacher "what am I going to do with chemistry in my life? Like if I become a car sales man, what use is chemistry!?" and the teacher just quietly muttered the answer.. "well I wouldn't buy a car from a guy who doesn't know the difference between hydrogen and petrol.." and then continued the lesson.

The guy was pretty quiet for the rest of the day lol.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 6 points 20 hours ago

I've never seen someone on a staircase stop to pull out a laptop.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago

Not a big surprise. In my opinion technology needs mostly to be eliminated from the classroom except on classes designed to teach how to use it and how it works. Its a distraction for most students.

I don't care how they try to stop it, give a kid computer/tablet/etc and they will figure out a way to play games on it, send messages to friends, and do anything else other than the schoolwork assigned to them.

The human brain evolved in a complex environment with all sorts of stimulus. It needs varied interactions with the environment to process and retain information effectively.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

In 15 years, they would have hopefully replaced those textbooks at least twice anyway. Or those are going to be some ratty-ass textbooks...

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I attended elementary school in the days when we used old paper shopping bags to cover our text books. They were easily 15 years old and we lived in a winter town that got a lot of muddy sloppy snow.

I can confirm there is a path toward text books that last more than 15 years.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 points 11 hours ago

15 years is pushing it, IMO.

The "This Book is the Property Of" label had 9 spaces. Most of my textbooks had 4-6 previous students.

I remember being assigned a couple books where all the lines had been filled out, and I had to create my own space below. They were definitely falling apart by that time.

[–] copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 17 hours ago

I sense some anti-tech-bias here. Afaik they only want to completely abandon screens for kids under six. I have not found more details for older ones.