Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 28/Jan 04:37

Back to the textbooks

VERY recently, the government of Sweden, a country renowned for its incorporation of cutting-edge technology in its education system, made a bold pronouncement to revisit its 2009 decision for Swedish schools’ exclusive use of e-textbooks. In the ensuing 15 years it has seen some unintended negative outcomes from that decision, which has since prompted it to revert to the use of traditional printed textbooks in the classroom. In reversing its 2009 decision, it acknowledged the growing body of evidence that identify several harms overexposure of young people to screens are susceptible to, as well as diminishing academic performance in critical areas such as reading and language. As with the development and incorporation of all technologies, digital devices, which have now become an integral part of our daily existence, have their downsides which we must always be mindful of, and their incorporation in the teaching/learning repertoire must be carefully evaluated by education planners and practitioners. The turn of the century would have brought with it the euphoria of screen deployment in the classroom as a means of enhancing student engagement with its myriads of associated benefits. Its promise of easier access to information seemed too obvious to ignore and traditional printed textbooks suddenly came to be viewed as obsolete. This move seemed quite obvious, given the mandate of schools to prepare students for a new world order that had already evolved an extensive and elaborate digital ecosystem; this move would be a great way to prepare them to be effective digital natives. But as the unintended consequences of this move began to unfold, researchers began to sound notes of caution. Among the reasons cited by the Swedish authorities for its decision are the negative impacts of screen engagement for prolonged periods, especially in younger children. The research findings have been mounting and have been consistent; a reality any responsible and progressive government could no longer ignore. Research has pointed to the potential for students to be distracted from school-related activities by digital games and web-surfing. Excessive screen engagement has also been identified as a major reason for many students displaying diminished affective and psychomotor skills and shorter attention spans in the classroom. This has become a major challenge for educators. Excessive screen time also reduces direct conversation time among children and adults, and this in turn impacts negatively on their linguistic development, impacting ultimately on their overall performance in school. Multimedia tasking has been linked by researchers to executive functioning in teenagers, particularly on working memory, notions of inhibition, and the capacity to switch between tasks. Sleep deprivation, obesity, antisocial behaviours and vision problems have all been linked by researchers to screen overexposure. Indeed, some researchers have cited screen addiction as a public health issue owing to its negative impacts on children’s cognitive, linguistic and socio-emotional development. The inability of students to engage and negotiate has been the cause of many fights in schools, with an obvious and exponential rise in the levels of intolerance. So, what can we learn from the Swedish decision? While there is no doubt that the incorporation of the various forms of digital technologies can be useful learning tools, its infusion in the pedagogy must be judicious and relevant. Over-reliance is ill-advised. It certainly cannot replace the role of the teacher in the classroom. The professional capacity of the teacher is critical here in ensuring a healthy balance between traditional modes of curriculum delivery and the deployment of digital media. Printed textbooks will continue to have their rightful place in the classroom given what the research is telling us. The experience of the “one laptop per child initiative” taught us many lessons, including how easy it was for the devices to become toys and used for every purpose except academic engagement. While screens can help to make learning fun and thus enhance student learning outcomes, teachers’ professional discretion and judgement are critical in ensuring minimal negative impacts from its engagement. The tech-industrial oligarchy – the owners and producers of digital technologies – has been relentless in its attempts to have us all believe that traditional notions of schooling have no more relevance, even to the point of insisting that teachers can be replaced in the classroom by screens. The learning loss and associated social deficits experienced by students during the covid19 pandemic is also a poignant reminder that the schooling process is a lot more complex than the creators of digital technologies would have us naively believe. Turning the pages of books has a certain charm and joy. The post Back to the textbooks appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.