I could not agree more with Jie Gao’s letter in the June 24 issue of WW-P News. I am a math professor and clearly appreciate the need for students to be comfortable with technology in today’s world. But the way the district is going about it, giving young children 24/7 access to laptops, is not the way to do this.
Education and learning should be the first priority, and technology should only be used to facilitate specific learning goals. From what I see as a parent, the schools are now doing this backwards —the teachers are under pressure to incorporate technology into every aspect of the curriculum to justify the use of these computers, and the educational objectives have taken a back seat.
This has resulted in an increasing emphasis on assignments that value style over substance and vast amounts of class time wasted with students watching videos and playing “educational” games, many of which seem to be of only marginal value.
I can confirm all of the stories included in Jie Gao’s letter — students are spending class time playing video games, as it’s not possible for the teachers to monitor 25 kids’ computer screens. Students are chatting with each other on the computers. Students are losing out on opportunities to socialize at recess, lunch, and on the bus because they are instead hovering over the Chromebooks playing games.
Numerous studies show that a large amount of daily screen time is bad for children’s health, and there are studies to show that the act of taking notes by hand helps children to learn and internalize content. Our children are being deprived of this experience.
I wish I could heed the call to refuse the Chromebook, but as a parent with children in the grades that are using Chromebooks there is no ability to refuse. The devices are being shoved down our throats by the district. To add insult to injury, we are expected to pay hundreds of dollars for insurance for these machines that I do not want my children to have. I have four children in this school system. My two youngest have been using the Chromebooks for two years. My two oldest thankfully were spared this experiment. I can clearly see after two years what a superior educational experience my older children had in elementary and middle school, as a result of the introduction of the 1:1 initiative. We have always put limits on our children’s technology use, and it should be our right as parents to do so. The district has taken this right away from us by giving my children unlimited access to these laptops.
As a taxpayer, I can think of many ways this money could be better used to improve the educational experience of students in this district. It would be much more cost effective and educationally responsible to instead have laptop carts that teachers can reserve for specific purposes rather than handing each young child a laptop with no restrictions and no oversight.
Karen Clark
West Windsor
