Technology in schools

By Brian Gibbs

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Today, many school districts in Clayton County are instituting the use of iPads as an educational tool in kindergarten classes through high school. Schools require the students to sign an iPad pledge listing appropriate behaviors with the device.

The U.S. Center for Media Literacy reports fewer than 5 percent of schools teach media education. Why not have a class teaching the risks of media consumption rather than insisting all children need to have an iPad in their hands and know where it is at all times?

In a 2011 New York Times article, Larry Cuban, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, suggested that millions of dollars in financial resources being invested in iPads would be better spent to recruit, train and retain teachers. Cuban wrote: “There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines. iPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.”

Studies published by the Media Education Foundation in 2005 found that the average American child spends more than 40 hours a week in front of a screen - a study produced five years before iPads became an educational tool in the classroom.

In his National Bestseller, “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder.” He links the lack of outdoor play in today's wired generation to the increasingly disturbing trends of childhood obesity, attention disorders and depression. A 2010 survey by the Iowa Department of Health found that 37 percent of Iowa children were either overweight or obese.

Part of my job as a naturalist is to give classroom programs on the environment. In December, I walked into a classroom full of second-graders scattered in different parts of the room. Headphones covered their ears and eyes focused on the screen in front of them. The students were so unaware of their surroundings that the teacher had to physically remove the headphones from their ears.

Before holiday break, I observed 22 papers posted outside of a second-grade classroom. The students' task was to color in a picture of a bear and answer: “When little bear sleeps, I will be …” Nine of the 22 responses said they would be “playing video games.”

In the entryway of another elementary school, I saw a poster asking parents to donate money for more iPad applications. The poster stated how critical it was for students to become exposed to technology as it becomes more integrated into their life. Another county school displays iPad posters throughout its hallways, showing how to correctly hold an iPad.

A veteran middle schoolteacher in Clayton County recently told me of her frustrations over iPads: “As teachers, we are made to feel we are doing a disservice to the kids if we don't teach them how to use this technology right now …. I have to work so much harder to implement one hands-on activity in an hour of class, yet more and more, I go home sad because of this difficult transition.” This was the same class where students repetitively asked me if I had some animal they could touch.

With proper media education and limited media consumption, iPads and their educational applications can be an engaging tool. Ideally, age-appropriate instruction should also promote a healthy, creative and stimulating lifestyle.

When we decide what and how our children learn, consider that when a child born today turns 30 years old, he or she will have spent nearly 10 years of their life in front of a screen - a full decade of watching life instead of living one.

Brian Gibbs of Elkader is the Clayton County Conservation Naturalist. Comments: brian_

claytonccb@yahoo.com