Estonia eschews phone bans in schools and leaps into AI

theguardian.com

3 pointsdr_dshiv2 comments

> Kallas said there were no mobile phone bans in schools in Estonia. On the contrary: a smartphone is seen as part and parcel of Estonia’s highly successful digital education policy. “I’ve not heard of any problems, to be honest,” she said.

This is just plain wrong. There are bans in many schools which are able to enforce the rules, not all can do it for various reasons unfortunately. There was a public letter published last year from parents, experts of education etc to the Ministry of Education regarding the issue, but unfortunately it was ignored completely. In Estonia the current push to AI in schools and attitude of Ministry of Education in general is seen as arrogant at best, corruptive at worst.

https://www.err.ee/1609469623/avalik-kiri-nutiseadmete-kasut...

Thanks for sharing that. It was a surprising statement—that they haven’t heard of any problems.

Personally, I really struggle with the way computers are used in schools. Seems to be all the worst aspects, little of the good. Ie, reading jpgs of textbook pages in learning management systems—and no coding or digital skills time/training. My son is in an IB school in the Netherlands.

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