In case you hadn’t noticed, last year’s wave of school cellphone bans has turned into a widespread reconsideration of all things related to technology.
Screen time, 1:1 devices, YouTube, social media, AI, and educational software programs like I-Ready and IXL are all getting a turn in the barrel.
“We’re at this place where parents and teachers and school leaders are all starting to say, ‘Okay, we’ve had enough digital learning,’” says The Bell Ringer’s Holly Korbey in a new interview. “‘This is too much.’”
But is the outrage warranted? How to tell what needs rolling back and what’s actually helping kids? That’s the hard part for parents, educators, and reporters.
Watch the interview or read the transcript above or on YouTube. Listen to the conversation on Spotify or Apple.
Korbey’s focus is on the promise and peril of digital learning programs. But she’s also familiar with parents’ concerns about kids’ school-assigned devices being used for decidedly non-educational purposes (like watching March Madness).
Asked about the state of news coverage of the current reckoning, Korbey thinks we have a long way to go. “I think that we’re missing asking some big questions because of these kind of more sensationalist stories that are spreading about kids watching YouTube,” she says. “That’s bad, but it’s unclear how much that’s happening.”
“In my opinion, there need to be more stories looking at how are students using the digital platforms,” she says. “Is it 10 minutes at the end of a math class to get some extra practice on that concept you just learned? Or is it providing the main instruction?”
In some places, Korbey says, schools are using digital learning platforms as the central instructional approach. “I want to read more stories about schools that are using digital for Tier 1 instruction” — and how well it’s serving students.
Are students learning on digital platforms? How well do the learning apps work for students? And — bottom line — What are they learning?
It’s not so much how much time is being spent but rather what’s it being spent on. “That’s the kind of detail I want to read,” says Korbey, who thinks that the New York Times would be great at diving in deep on this.
“I think it’s really crucial at this moment that parents get some hardcore information about what is being used, when it’s being used, and what is the role of the teacher in how it’s being used,” says Korbey. “And that is something that we can do through reporting.”
Instead, Korbey says she’s seen more coverage that’s somewhat sensationalistic — that focus on parent emotions or outrageous anecdotes or conflict.
Related reading
The Practice Problem (Education Next 2025)
How to teach kids who flip between book and screen (MIT Technology Review 2023)
What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong (New Yorker 2014)
Material Question: Annals of Innovation (New Yorker 2014)
The Innovation Administration (The American Prospect 2009)
Previously from The Grade
AltSchool, media hype, & the innovation dilemma (2015)
A ‘national reckoning’ for ed tech
Rethinking Chromebooks in Kansas
