Digital Devices

A growing number of school districts are turning to online programs such as Edgenuity as they struggle to recruit enough certified teachers. The programs deliver online lessons while an in-person facilitator (often someone with no expertise in the subject being studied) oversees the classroom, but the lack of a content area teacher who can answer student questions on the topics being studied often leads to student frustration, boredom and cheating. If your district is thinking of offering online instruction provided by outside vendors as a solution for teacher shortages, you may want to research the pros and cons.

Textbooks are becoming obsolete, Bill Gates wrote in his annual letter from his foundation. High School English teacher Peter Greene counters Gates' argument on the Forbes site with five reasons why he says textbooks will continue to be a classroom staple -- at least in the near term -- including a preference, even among digital natives, for printed material. What is your opinion?

Do you know what services your child’s school offers for kids that have hearing impairments? A school district in California is using technology solutions to help students with hearing issues, according to Michelle Zavaleta, coordinator of psychological services in special education for the Tulare City School District. In a blog post, she shares several tips and findings about adopting such solutions, including finding a tool that all students can use, not only those with hearing difficulties.

T.H.E. Journal reports that schools that allow students to access cellphones have lower rates of cyberbullying than those that ban the devices, according to data from the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. The survey also shows that there is an uptick in incidents of cyberbullying in schools since 2010.

A paper entitled How Much Mightier Is the Pen Than the Keyboard for Note-Taking? A Replication and Extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014), discussed in the The Chronicle of Higher Education shows that students who take notes by hand score better on factual questions compared to those taking notes on laptops. Researchers say their conclusions do not favor one method over the other and instead say note-taking methods are different and should be left up to student discretion. The  original study referenced was conducted in 2014 and showed students who took notes on a laptop may have taken more notes but had less retention of material. If this a topic of discussion at your school, you might want to see what the new research has to say.

The effects of digital screen time on children's well being and development is a source of huge debate at the moment. While concerns over the effects of these new devices on childhood development are not unwarranted, scientists have not been able to reach a clear consensus on the topic. Now a new study by the University of Oxford, examining data from over 350,000 subjects in the UK and US, finds digital technology use accounts for less than half a percent of a young person's negative mental health. The research suggests everything from wearing glasses to not getting enough sleep have bigger negative effects on adolescent well being than digital screen use. Binge-drinking and marijuana use also were noted as having significantly larger negative effects, and bullying was found to have four times larger the negative effect on well being than digital screen use. On the positive end of the spectrum, things like eating a good breakfast and getting enough sleep were much more statistically relevant in affecting well being than the effects of technology use.

Most parents probably won’t be surprised by this news, but students worldwide are finding ways to use their phones in school despite bans, according to a global review by the Australian government. The findings come as a ban on the devices in some schools in New South Wales in Australia, despite this evidence, has drawn criticism from some educators and parents.

Richard Bromfield , a professor at the Harvard Medical School, begins his book called Standing Up to Screens: A Doable Plan for Parents United, with a telling quote from James Baldwin: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” Bromfield notes parents use their own screens nine hours or more a day, more than most children or teens. Half talk on their phones while driving with their young children. A third text, and about 16 percent check their social media. "Yet despite these facts, 78 percent of parents judge themselves to be ‘good media role models’ for their children’s use of screens," he writes in a chapter titled "Fess Up." Bromfield is not prescribing a ban on devices, but his book describes a simple and novel strategy for parents to help their children learn to manage their screens.

Does it seem like you are getting more and more robocalls these days? It is a hot topic of discussion everywhere. Unwanted calls are usually pretty harmless, but some pose a threat to your privacy and identity. All are an unwanted distraction and a waste of time and one report says that nearly half of all cell phone calls will be scams in 2019. Need some advice on how to block them? Try the step-by-step directions, tips on apps and ideas for shutting them down in the article Here's how to block robocalls on iPhone and Android.

Your phone is incredibly valuable to criminals and spies. Treat it accordingly. Don’t bother with a four-digit passcode, which is easy to guess. Six-digit passcodes are harder to guess. Eight-digit-passcodes are better. Need to change you password? Try How to Bypass and Reset the Password on Every Operating System for advice on how to change your password on most any device.