Should primary school kids be encouraged to use personal learning devices (ipads etc) for learning?
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I’m too out of date (children already adult) to advise about apps. My kids were doing “internet school” overseas from 2009, for 4 and 2 years respectively, so I do have some experience with helping them handle online learning. They were older though, in sec school.
In terms of learning, the main thing is to take a good and objective look at whether online or offline works better for a specific task/learning. Some of it is gut feel! Online learning proponents often make it sound as if everything online is better. I don’t believe that’s true. For eg., writing Chinese characters, or working Maths problems using models, are best done offline. Kids need to have the physical “feel” of putting it on paper to really internalise that kind of learning. For some tasks, such as watching a lecture; being able to manipulate things easily, revise and repeat; listening to something being read aloud - those things are great online. Group work using online discussions and shared documents is a boon as well.
Reading books online - I think this depends on whether there are distractions or not. If the app allows a child to just read, without clicking onto other things and getting distracted, then I think it’s OK. But if a child is clicking around rather than reading continuously for pages at a time, then I think going to physical books or a dedicated e-reader is better. One of the purposes of reading a book (for children especially) is to develop sustained attention. They can’t do that if they are being distracted frequently.
We had a big ongoing debate about making notes - whether typing them was as effective as writing them out. My 2 daughters disagreed on this. I must say that the one who preferred writing her notes by hand is the much higher achiever of the 2, and my husband and I (both high achievers in our time) also prefer handwriting for learning, though that may be because we are old! Not possible to draw a firm conclusion from this tiny sample, though I believe that quite a lot of studies do show that handwriting notes helps in understanding and recall compared to typing.
Addiction can be controlled by having firm scheduling and limits, and having other offline activities that they can do and enjoy. My experience is that once I was firm about switching off gadgets, they would find things to do offline, and would enjoy them. But often I had to be the one to force them to switch off first as just sitting in front of a screen is very seductive. As they got older, they learned better self-management and I only needed to comment now and again when things seemed to be getting unbalanced.
My opinions. -
Thanks @slmkhoo for the reply!
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chiongahemmy\" post_id=\"2026582\" time=\"1623248222\" user_id=\"193199:
I have a kid in upper primary. They have regular ICT lessons in the comp lab (desktop comps). The school also has some tablets (sufficient for one whole class to have one each) which were used to demo (to a visiting school delegation from Korea, Pre-Covid) how Kahoot! can be used for interactive educational quizzes planned by the teacher. The kids has zero problem learning how to use those tablets - they are pretty idiot proof.
Hi everyone,
I have 2 kids in upper and lower primary respectively. It seems like MOE will be encouraging schools to integrate personal learning devices (tablets, chromebooks etc). What are your general thoughts?
Are there any helpful apps that I can download to make learning more fun/educational for the kids?
Besides screen time and being addicted, are there any other concerns I should consider?
Thanks everyone!
When they go to secondary school, MOE will also provide a subsidized personal learning device for all of them.
My general take, delay as long as possible regarding screen devices. The kids learn to use them extremely easily. There’s no need to go out & buy one for home educational purposes. There’s no need to buy any apps (there are some tuition-based ones) to enhance educational/academic learning.
To me, the downsides outweigh any benefits.
- Deteriorating eyesight (I see more & more kids in the class needing spectacles every single year they progress up in primary schools).
- Gaming addiction (yes, they will use those devices to play mind-dulling games).
- Exposure to inappropriate content (yes, even if you try to install adult filters etc. And even though school will educate them about online safety, parents also need to talk to our kids often about this).
I’m still old school after watching HBL necessitate the kids screen-based educational journey during Covid.
Read books, go outside play sports, explore nature. Best fun for kids, since the olden days till now. -
I feel that exposure to electronic gadgets for kids now is inevitable. What’s more with HBL and with elder siblings at home. With the first one, I tried to act idiot in gadgets even tho I realised later on that I m really one. The generation now is faster than ours.
In controlling their screen time, I will just flip my authority card when I find it excessive. And I actually offer tv time instead after certain hours of the day as I find the screen is further. Sometimes one will ask another to play physical games. Noticed some games they play together could help in bonding in a way… -
Some digital time is inevitable in this day and age. Even for babies with strict parents, grandparents will almost certainly break the rules (in my experience), and there is also exposure in other people’s homes, church, etc. I think if you can delay the start to 2yo it’s already very good!
But it’s important to have strict control of time and type of exposure, especially in the preschool years. The most important thing is to convince the kids that limiting time is necessary and to inculcate the self-discipline to self-limit. I would say that we should aim that by upper primary, latest secondary, most kids should be pretty much self-limiting with occasional reminders from parents. Those that can’t/won’t will need more externally imposed discipline or addiction and other problems can arise. -
I still prefer physical books, schools I feel should give homework on their school workbooks, worksheets etc. get children to read their textbooks and story books. Inevitable that HBL will be held during covid, but I’m sure we can all limit the number of hours online.