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Ruth Gaskovski's avatar

Excellent, well-researched piece Kaitlyn! I especially appreciate that you went beyond the critique and included an editable and printable version of an action letter. Have you come across Denise Champney? She just recently wrote a piece on Public about the failure of tech in the school system - see https://public.substack.com/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2. She would certainly be interested in your work and is also an action-oriented educator. Maybe you could combine your efforts :)

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Dixie Dillon Lane's avatar

Thank you, Kaitlyn. This is extremely disheartening. It's especially discouraging see this sort of thing continuing to happen when we already have so much evidence of the harms that the heavy use of tablets, screens, etc. in schools have already done.

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2serve4Christ's avatar

...the way technology insinuates itself into our lives as going from "better than nothing to better than anything. ... These are the stations on our voyage to forgetting what it means to be human."

- Sherry Turkle (American sociologist. Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

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ESO's avatar

Great reporting, analysis, and suggested actions, Kaitlyn! Keep up the good work!

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Thalia Toha's avatar

Kaitlyn- Thanks for sharing this. Such an important topic. Cheers, -Thalia

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Elle J's avatar

Some school districts do t even have the funding to provide updated textbooks.

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Denise Champney's avatar

Great article Kaitlyn! There has been a complete disregard on whether or not technology supports student learning ever since big tech, aka Bill Gates, has been pushing it into education. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has been doing the same. Check out my timeline on Environmental Progress https://environmentalprogress.org/education-timeline. I plan to write more about what I have found, the connections run deep between many supposed nonprofit education organizations and funding from tech. VR has no place in schools, it is a definite ploy to get it in the hands of kids to create customers for life.

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2serve4Christ's avatar

BOOK RECCO

"Who’s Raising the Kids: Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Our Children"

by Susan Linn

— a research-based primer in what’s at stake for our children, who the players (technology, marketing, commodification/commercialization of children) are and how we got to this place. It’s truly a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of America’s kids.

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

Not to mention that children will blind themselves with a device that irradiates their brain, and disconnects them from reality. (transcranial magnetic stimulation via wireless devices, VR, can put us into a trance, as it hijacks our alpha brain wave at the temporoparietal junction of our brain)

https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/techmyth

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