Digital Devices

Learning from home has been "a roller coaster," according to Samantha Nicole Vicedo, a junior at Luther Burbank High School. In a blog post, Vicedo and other students share what the experience of remote instruction has been for them, including Cheyenne Lo, also a junior, who shares frustrations with technology and teachers who ignore certain time limits. It is a good read for parents who may be having trouble getting kids to describe their issues with remote learning and would like to gain some perspective.

As digital learning is expected to expand, data shows 67% of K-12 schools – comprising of approximately 31.5 million students -- do not meet the recommended threshold of 1 megabits per second per student, according to a report by Connected Nation. Yet, data shows some improvement in median bandwidth per student and costs. Rural areas' unique issues often make broadband connection difficult, and hotspots won’t work in some districts, such as Tennessee’s Polk County School District, where some areas lack cellular towers. According a report by the National 4-H Council and Microsoft, 20% of teenagers live in rural areas without high-speed broadband internet, and 50% say they struggle to do homework for that reason.

To overcome the challenge, some districts are teaming up with private businesses in creative ways. For example, Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas, is partnering with SpaceX to transmit high-speed, low-latency internet access to some students’ homes via the company's Starlink satellite system. The service will launch in early 2021 with 45 families who live in remote areas and have no Internet options.

Thirty-nine percent of principals and school district leaders surveyed say they no longer will close schools for inclement weather, instead adopting remote learning days in those circumstances. Another 32% say they are considering the move, according to EdWeek Research Center data. Other leaders say they will maintain snow days to provide students with a bit of “normalcy” during an unprecedented year.

Remote learning requires new strategies to help kids develop healthy friendships online, says Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor in Washington, D.C. In an interview, Fagell suggests ideas for teachers in being purposeful when pairing students for projects and using tools such as Zoom to help students mediate any disputes, and discusses how to involve parents in the process of growing friendships.

The California Partners Project partnered with the Child Mind Institute to take a deep look at how life during Covid is being experienced by teens who are coping with loss, social isolation, and screen saturation. A report called “Are the Kids Alright?” includes in-depth interviews with 46 teenagers, between 13 and 17 years old, in California. The surveyed teens were asked to keep detailed, week-long journals of their habits and lifestyles.

While a relatively small sampling and based solely in California, the study did find that many teens are struggling, relying heavily on screens to handle the isolation of the past several months. Other key findings included that teens are experiencing “a tremendous loss due to school closure and social isolation" and are using "social media and gaming (as) the main way to meet their social needs." Also, the extent of their technology use and its impact "aren't obvious, even to those closest to teens," according to the report.

Included in the report are several ways parents can connect with and support their kids. Parents should support sleep by encouraging healthy behaviors like regular bedtimes, not eating large meals late in the evening, and not consuming caffeine more than four hours before going to bed. Parents should also try to encourage exercise, since moderate exercise each day can promote restorative sleep and aid health. It can also help to create a schedule that teens can stick to.

Parents are also urged to model behavior they want to see their kids follow. Parents looking to promote healthy screen time boundaries should be aware of how frequently they use technology, and should brainstorm and support alternative activities that can be used to fill time. It can also help to encourage "tech mindfulness:" Basically, when you pick up your phone, think about why you're using the device and what you hope to get out of it.

With an end to virtual learning not yet in sight, schools should focus on "access to consistent, high-quality remote or online learning," according to 54% of parents surveyed by the National Parents Union. 37% said they thought a safe return to in-person instruction should be prioritized. The survey also reviews parent opinions on learning loss, state testing and schools’ decision-making processes.

Young children are watching a wide range of videos on YouTube that are chock full of advertisements, sometimes have violent footage, and offer little educational value, according to a report from academics and Common Sense Media in their annual survey of kids and media. YouTube is a juggernaut in kids’ media, and viewership has shot up during the pandemic. But the company has struggled to police the videos that kids watch, even after investing deeply in ways to better moderate children’s content once it became a political problem. The new report argues that YouTube hasn’t done enough. Researchers collected more than 1,600 videos from 191 parents that their children, all younger than 8, watched on YouTube’s main site this year. Among the findings: Ads were present on 95% of the videos in the study. A fifth of the ads were categorized as age inappropriate -- a bourbon commercial on a nail painting video for girls; another ad, during a video game clip, that asked, “should the U.S. deport illegal immigrants?”

“Protecting kids and families is a top priority for us,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement responding to the report. “Because YouTube is not for children, we’ve invested significantly in the creation of the YouTube Kids app, a destination made specifically for kids to explore their imagination and curiosity. We’re encouraged by the report’s findings that 63% of parents supervise their kids’ experience on YouTube, but continue to recommend parents use YouTube Kids if they plan to allow kids under 13 to watch independently.”

Sixty-seven percent of teachers report using more digital books this year than last, according to a survey of 300 teachers and 100 administrators by OverDrive Education. Of those surveyed, a majority said they were conducting at least some instruction online. This of course, is a sign of the times, but important now more than ever to keep in mind the students that lack access to technology. Among teachers in rural schools, 58% say they don’t use any ebooks in their classes.

Equity -- along with health data, safety protocols, labor negotiations and political pressure -- is part of the equation in determining whether to reopen school buildings, education leaders say. Joris Ray, a superintendent in Tennessee, doesn't want to risk reopening when many of his district's families do not have health insurance, and Derek Turner, a district operations chief in Maryland, notes the "layers of complexity" involved in deciding in an article entitled Making a School Reopening Decision and Taking the Heat.

It is almost the end of 2020 and while technology seems even more tightly woven into our lives, the election has shown that there are still times when it is essentially irrelevant. Let’s face it, most American voting systems use old technology if they use technology at all, and the (permanent record) pieces of paper scrutinized by so many diligent vote counters all worked pretty well, even if it seemed a bit slow. Technology can be an incredibly useful tool, but it has drawbacks and may not always be the answer to everything.