We know families have an important role here. They can support healthy routines at home, talk with children about their online experiences and ask schools how technology is being used more generally.
Useful questions to ask your child’s teacher or school could include:
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what is the learning purpose of the technology?
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how does it improve or extend the learning?
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how are distraction, privacy and online safety managed?
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how are students being taught to use digital tools and AI responsibly?
Students should also have a voice in decisions about their technology use. The ways they experience technology often differ to that of adults.
Young people experience both the benefits and harms of digital environments directly. They can offer important insights into how devices support learning, where they create distraction and any unintended consequences of planned policy changes.
1 Comments
blind3rdeye@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 43d
This gradual shift in discussion makes me feel like a visionary. I mean, obviously I'm not the only one, but I've been saying consistently from the very start (2007) that students using personal laptops instead of books at school was a mistake.
(My reasoning was that the laptop would be a major distraction for students, and also that having it would be very expensive and wasteful to have a laptop for every student. At the time, things like cyber-bullying weren't on my mind.)
And now, after almost 20 years, the policy pendulum seems ready to swing back in the other direction.