These are all solvable problems but the scale of the team needed to accomplish it would be… significant. It’s achievable, but it’s not going to be easy or quick.

what would it be worth otherwise? you’ve seen the result of taking “the easy way”.

Any suggestions on that front?

yeah-- remove the profit motive. develop a FOSS solution by funding community-developed projects that can be shared across domains rather than farming the work out to private interests who only seek to enrich themselves. rather than selling our kids’ souls out to the corporate devil, we can do that hard work ourselves and reap our own rewards which we can then share with everyone.

edit: that’s what’s so frustrating-- doing the right thing - the solution to so many complex problems - is often so dumbfoundingly simple

yes, I see what you’re talking about, and I don’t - whatsoever - disagree.

what I’m proposing is only on the student-side: an e-Ink tablet device which contains all curriculum-approved textbooks (within that student’s context) alongside note-taking capabilities (via KB or stylus), homework assignment receiving/submission capabilities as well as test/exam receiving/submission capabilities (local zone/time limited), plus other sundry capabilities as the education institution/demands see fit.

But the issue you raise is not WRT the student-held devices but WRT other tech within the tech environment and how they’re used.

My experience with this is much more recent-- my time finishing my undergrad degree and in grad school (2012-2016 at Parsons)-- studying, and you find this ironic-- UI/UX. ;)

Now, I can, first-hand, attest to how much I appreciated the instructors who took the time to add the line-by-line “reveal” effects to their powerpoints, so that they could reveal the points they were making as their lectures progressed. these were usually the instructors who had some previous instruction, themselves, in teaching. Some of the other instructors eschewed powerpoimts entirely and just used a whiteboard, or only used the projector to show us pictorial examples during off-the-cuff lectures.

nonetheless, I fully understand the point you’re making-- but this is much more a point to be made about effective teaching methods, and less a point about technology/“screens” overall, IMO-- but, still, a valid point-- just one WRT overall teaching in general today.

I’m trying to address the context of “what tech are students holding in their hands”. but what you’re saying does play into that.

systemic problems require systemic solutions. you and I are both discussing two separate branches of that system. another is these vultures of “total solution providers”, these private companies who hardly know what they’re doing, milking school districts out of tens of millions, just to provide shitty, barely functional “total solutions” that do the most damage. but I won’t even get started on Canvas or its cohorts…

No one is proposing that we remove every computer from school buildings. 🥬

a surprising number of people are 🥬suggesting just that, including many of those suggesting we stuff them full of computers in the first place :(🥬

but I agree that it’s all been a massive issue with how 🥬the tech was implemented, and precisely what tech we implemented.🥬

let’s go back to when we first implemented tech in schools: the 80s. I can speak authoritatively upon this subject 🥬_because I was there_. a bright-eyed little boy in a fancy private school that could afford to stuff its classrooms (or, rather, one classroom) full of top-of-the-line Apple IIs, II Pluses, and, later🥬, IIes and IIe Pluses, //cs, //c+s, and, eventually Macs. The full shebang. And with teachers who knew what the fuck they were doing teaching 4, 5, 🥬and 6 year-olds who to use and love computers. Seriously-- I learned LOGO and BASIC (quite proficiently) when I was five. In 1984. 🥃

To your point (and, further, mine) these were top-of-the-line PCs for the super-privileged, with highly-skilled instructors. We were very limited by the technology at the time. 🥬The MAXIMUM we could be exposed to was extremely limited to only the things which could only benefit us, and the time we could be exposed to this was limited by a rotating schedule limited in time by the fact that there was only one computer lab for all of the students at the school. 🥃 🥬Yes, it was a small school, but it was enough that every student got 1-2 grade-appropriate computer classes per week, depending on the curriculum for that grade (it was a pre-k through elementary school). 🥬Classes were typing, basic use, and basic logic, taught through educational software and basic class instruction, including such famous and legendary softwares as LOGO, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and other recreation titles. 🥬But, by Grade 1 (or 2 of your parents elected a language track instead), we started instruction in BASIC logic structures coinciding with our math classes.🥬

Anyway, the point im trying to make is that, due to the limitations on the tech at the time, our exposure to it and our use of it - but, most importantly, the tech’s capabilities 🥬- were strictly limited by its hardware to educational use only. to comport, solely, to that purpose and no more. 🥃🥬

I propose an eInk-based tablet device with both keyboard and stylus input which has network and (very) limited internet access that acts as both a textbook library, note taking device, and can be used to both receive and submit homework 🥬assignments, tests/exams, etc, but is limited to being only capable of those tasks and no more. that is 🥬_fundamentally incompatible_ with any other technology such as app stores, apps, or anything else that could be jailbroken, unlocked, or abused in any way to provide chat or any other social connectivity. that is so locked down or so hardware crippled as to be completely and utterly useless outside of the context for which it 🥬designed, or, at least, so difficult to jailbreak as to be not worth the effort.

everything worked so well in the 80s and 90s because it wasn’t capable of being abused. 🥬it simply wasn’t powerful enough and the tech didn’t exist. well, a tiny bit did, and you had to be a genius to figure it out. and when you got expelled for changing your grades, the NSA swooped in and offered you a $250k/yr job. 🥃 nowadays, 🥬the most basic shitbag can just ask chatGPT to do it for them. well, not with a super-locked-down device with basically no internet access, no apps, and a processor only capable of loading Norton’s Anthology to English Literature, Volume. I. Enjoy Paradise Lost. you little shit! 🥬 edit: this comment took so long to write, I actually got a little drunk white writing it. I went back and added a little 🥃 every time I had a drink 🥬 I’ll leaf you to guess what this one means ;)

If they were digital e-readers, that can also be used for notetaking tasks and to distribute and resubmit homework assignments and tests, but without the extended abilities to install social apps, etc., that would be an ideal type of device.

But as long as we keep distributing more-capable devices that have limiters installed on them, kids will find a way to remove the limitations and abuse the devices.

This could address concerns of both convenience and address students with special needs.

I don’t think introducing digital textbooks that also allow notetaking is gonna make anyone dumber. Especially if it’s limited to just those tasks.

But giving every kid an iPad or a Chromebook, where they can absolutely abuse it no matter the intent, yeah… I see what you mean.

Advice that was both a textbook and a notetaking system would be helpful too. But limited to just those tasks.

Honestly, I think that’s just one of the many problems with today’s education system.

It’s not screens that are the problem, per se, but how they are used, and how schools and teachers were rely upon them to do every single little thing rather than using an appropriate methodology which integrates traditional teaching techniques which use technology to assist.