We have a fairly complete understanding on the history and utility of books, dating to well before Gutenberg.

What we don’t have is a rigourous longitudinal study on the effects of using screens for learning. That history is somewhat interesting, because we were writing 58008 on pocket calculators well ahead of the screen getting far bigger and going into colour.

When I got my TI-85 in high school, I spent more time in class with it programming TI-BASIC to solve my homework on its own than using it as directed. Like, coding the quadratic formula such that it wouldn’t spit out the two results (this is not going to be useful for learning) but rather provide a, b and c hanging out in the equation so that I could then more easily figure out the solution.

But using tablets and computers for younger and younger students alarms me. When I was learning about technology, you could tinker and hack, which made it a fantastic tool for learning new skills. These walled gardens are pure consumption machines designed to make the underpinning so opaque that students learn nothing about the technology inside.

I would like to see that here but our government just invested in online learning.

I literally read things differently on a screen and they’re gateways to distraction; I think there’s potential but so far it’s been mostly Google and Microsoft competing to get children comfortable with their productivity suites from a young age.