Rich Felker
@leahstokes.bsky.social This is like, if a century or so ago, we were asking "Why are we giving 5-year-olds books in classrooms?"
Yes it's extremely problematic that these are devices with Google backdoors in them and that Google is harvesting behavioral data and holds captive everything stored.
It's not problematic that they're "screens".
Rich Felker
@wizzwizz4 Um, are you trying to imply "comic books" in classrooms is a problem too? That is an utterly backwards "clueless olds" attitude just like the whole "screens" narrative.
FFS you let children learn and accustom themselves to the things that will be relevant to the world they're growing up in, in ways that are engaging and meaningful to them. You don't try to recreate the backwards world you grew up in.
wizzwizz4
@dalias It's also like asking "Why are we giving 5-year-olds comic books in classrooms?" and "Why are we allowing 5-year-olds to pass paper-dart notes in classrooms?".
The problem isn't screens: the problem is general-purpose computing. A scheme where 5-year-olds have special-purpose educational programs, and the teacher can see (in an EAFP fashion) whether they're running others in the classroom, would allow the "screens are distractions" issue to be addressed like any other distraction.
Rich Felker
@wizzwizz4 I said in my post you replied to that the spyware and stuff is bad. It's characterizing "screens" as bad that I object to.
wizzwizz4
@dalias Providing teachers with remote access to children's computers is an unjustifiable invasion of privacy. (Even having them look at the screens while they walk around the classroom is questionable. PCs are personal.) Automatically providing a list of running programs is too much.
Providing a binary "child is running an unexpected program" flag doesn't expose enough information to be a privacy violation, while preserving a heuristic for identifying why a struggling child is struggling.
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wizzwizz4
@dalias I forgot about the prejudice against comic books. Perhaps my argument will be clearer if you replace that with a more pretentious form of literature, such as Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, or Ulysses by James Joyce; or a technical repair manual for a rocket engine. However educational these are, they're not conductive to following along with lessons about a different topic entirely.
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wizzwizz4
@dalias That's not to say you should force children to learn the syllabus in order, week by week in lockstep. I can't imagine a greater impediment to learning. But if someone's participating in a lesson, they shouldn't be distracted.
Locking down computers so they can only run pre-approved software is not a good approach. This will prevent students from doodling or playing Tetris; it will prevent them from writing or installing computer programs. This will significantly hurt learning.
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Rich Felker
@wizzwizz4 OK, I'm sorry I left that part out. But "screen" does not imply there's a "legitimate party" who's entitled to spy. No one is. Period.
wizzwizz4
@dalias You specifically criticised corporate spying and lock-in. Plenty of people think a "legitimate" authority is somehow different. Nonetheless, I was addressing your criticism of "screens are bad".
So I can better understand your perspective: do you have experience of being in a "digitised" classroom? (I do.) I don't think your analogies are analogous enough to be used as an argument here, and I'd like to know where it's more likely that you're missing something, or I'm missing something.
Rich Felker
@wizzwizz4 The idea of having a digital cop-in-your-pocket for "use restriction" is just ridiculous and shouldn't even be on the table.
wizzwizz4
@dalias However, some degree of use restriction is required in a classroom, or the students will be distracted from their studies. To achieve this, either you implement automated use restrictions (impossible to calibrate, per Rice's theorem, and also indistinguishable from malware), or you have some level of manual oversight.
This is less of a problem for self-directed studies, but that requires self-regulation of motivation: study's boring when you don't get it. Many 5yos find that hard.
Rich Felker
@wizzwizz4 Yes that's a cop in your pocket.
In the case of cop-in-your-pocket on cameras to prevent them from being quiet, it's one that's putting people in real danger when they need to document something horrible happening.
The way you handle socially unacceptable behaviors is with consequences and understanding thereof, not with surveillance that pretends you can express what's right and wrong with code.
wizzwizz4
@dalias An analytics system that communicates the current state of a one-bit noisy signal, which only runs on school-issued devices, and is only active in a setting where it replaces the need for shoulder-surfing, is not a "digital cop-in-your-pocket".
How about requiring that all digital cameras in school make a clicking (photo) or beeping (video) noise when in operation? That is also a system that identifies when certain functions of a multi-function device are in use. Would that be a "cop"?
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