this is only the latest symptom for a previous untreated larger problem. back in 2000s before all these chromebooks, phone usage. people were being passed for failing courses, participation grades. now with chromebooks the teachers/admins can spend less energy or time to teach students how to learn properly. laptops are pretty much too distracting for notetaking in general, if restrict to that even. ive tried that in college, too easy to go online and browse, or do some random on your laptop.
this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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I blame stumbled upon for having to take genetics twice.
Lol man I sank so much time into that site. I miss it. Found some really cool shit through it
Chromebooks are not educational tools, they're a glorified web terminal locked down by google and your school administration to only allow you access to internet slop and the poorly implemented COPPA filter.
Your TI-84 calculator grants you more access than those piece of junk plastic tablets.
Entire generations of children are growing up tech illiterate because it's impossible for them to learn how to actually create or do anything useful with technology.
Even if you want to use them for dynamic assignments which eliminates the need for paper, I would only consider it if they used e-ink displays.
Even though Windows is not great, it doesn't stop you from executing stuff locally like CAD software, video editing, coding, etc.
And it should be limited to a lab/lab time where use of a computer or laptop is actually required.
I'd still rather see a district chuck OpenSUSE at computers though lol.
Kind of funny when you consider the years before TikTok screens in classrooms were increasing and standardized test scores were going up.
Also funny considering what has changed for education and the industry since then... Common core fully implemented, more unions have been weakened or completely removed, private schools and public funding for them have skyrocketed, wages have been stagnant, educational service providers have consolidated and largely become private equity milking cows, state and federal funding has plummeted, parents have had less time and resources to raise their children/prepare them for school, free food for children have largely been cut and mostly now focuses on inner city/ qualifying incomes only... Do I really need to go on?
Software has gotten worse for curious children though, i was on my apple II for several hours a day as a little kid, but if i was on an ipad instead I don't think i would have learned a single thing about how computers worked before high school. I was forced to learn how to use a command line to get the computer to do entertaining things, nowadays they speak the name of the game they want to play to the microphone and just tap the install button. There's no struggle with understanding the data structures and hardware layers of the device. If you want to mod the amount of in game curtency you have, there's no hexadecimal file to edit, it's actually a DLC you can pay for instead. There's no learning happening, besides maybe how to sneakily grab your parents credit card.
Apple used to promote Hypercard both as teaching aid and intro to object oriented programming, but that was a different company from the last 20 years. Now they are pushing corporate agendas in classrooms teaching kids how to be consumers, not computer users. They are fighting hard to get kids into their ecosystem because they know people hate changing platforms.
That hits the nail on the head. I spent mamy hours of my infront of various computers ranging from Atari over C128 to 8086 and finally a glorious 386. Most of that time was spent fixing problems, trying to understand hard- and software issues and finding workarounds.
Kids these days with iPads and Chromebooks don't experience any of that.
ok but that was a world of entire programs on a floppy disc and no real internet.
My son is doing a coop term in consumer computer repair and business is brisk in keeping 15 year old computers working, second lives with Linux.
I mean yeah that's awesome, i was talking about more like the elementary school level, im guessing your son wasn't perpetually on an ipad playing candy crush at that age
It's almost like more than one thing can be the cause.
I'm all for not petting kids in schools have access to their phones... when we finally have some reasonable gun control laws and they're no longer at constant risk of experiencing a mass shooting.