- Who is this post for? Parents and teachers
- What does it discuss? A report coming from Australia that suggests increasing use of mobile devices is lessening children’s digital skills
- How does it benefit you? Fresh perspective, focus
A new report by Australia’s National Assessment Programme, an Australian educational body, looks at technology literacy among two groups of children – one just leaving primary school and another in its fourth year of secondary school. More than 10,500 students took part. It compared digital literacy scores from 2011 with those from a survey carried out in late 2014, finding that the number of children meeting basic ICT literacy standards in these age groups had dropped significantly.
The report’s reasoning was that tablets and smartphones were making children competent at using many forms of online communication at the expense of those other skills emphasised by the curriculum, skills considered important for employability. Our favourite quote in response to the report was from Eben Upton, who came up with the idea for the Raspberry Pi computer now used to teach so many IT skills in schools. He said:
“There’s a place for tablets in education, but we need to get away from the idea that knowing how to pinch-zoom makes your toddler the next Bill Gates”
If you’d like to read the report in full, you can download it here
What are your thoughts on this report’s conclusions?
Better 