Prática de Shadowing: Are screens making it harder for students to learn? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service - Aprenda a falar inglês com o YouTube

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I like to suggest to use paper books, particularly in school, because it's very important for students to have a chance to do a kind of critical thinking without digital devices.
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I like to suggest to use paper books, particularly in school, because it's very important for students to have a chance to do a kind of critical thinking without digital devices.
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If my school decided to get rid of laptops and go back to books and pens and paper only, I think I would feel very limited.
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We've all heard stories of five or six year olds trying to zoom or tap pages on books, or shouting at a radio and asking it to play their favourite song.
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And part of this is because of the amount of time they spend on screens, both at home and at schools.
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Because in schools, laptops, iPads, smart screens have now become part of the curriculum, and in some countries they are worried about the effects that this is having on education.
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And in Sweden, they have decided to move away from screens altogether and back to textbooks, pens and paper.
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So will this plan get students reading more?
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Or could it have an adverse effect and leave them less well prepared for the tech heavy world after school?
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I'm Hannah and that's what we're going to be talking about today on What in the World from the BBC World Service.
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To break this down for us, I'm speaking to Maddy Savage, who's a BBC journalist based in Stockholm.
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Hey, Maddie. How's it going? Hiya. I'm good, thank you.
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So Sweden has this reputation as one of Europe's most tech savvy societies, and a lot of that has been because of tech in schools.
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And now they're changing tact.
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Can you talk me through the reasons behind that?
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Yeah. So basically Sweden's a place that went all in on technology.
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So from the 2010s it was really normal - If you were at school, you'd have access to your own laptop or tablet through your school.
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But now Sweden wants to roll back on that, to make textbooks, books and pens the priority in classrooms.
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And basically it's because of falling literacy levels.
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So students, their reading skills aren't as good as they used to be.
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And Sweden's falling down international surveys, it's very hard to know whether there is a cause and effect, but the government definitely wants to try this out and move away from using laptops and back towards using books, but still using laptops some of the time.
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It does sound like it could be quite a big change for students.
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And I know you've been speaking to some, what have they told you?
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So, I've been speaking to students in high schools and they said they've started to notice the shift, perhaps not as much as the younger years, where I think they're now trying to start them out without access to these screens as much.
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But what they said is, oh, our bags are a bit heavier.
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We're taking home more books now and we're using more pens and paper.
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But the students I spoke to had kind of different opinions on whether this is a good thing or not.
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Here's Alexios and Sophie, who I chatted to.
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We are kind of the first generation to use technology this much, so our generation use it a lot. I use it a lot in my old schools, and I don't want the same thing for my siblings, mostly because the internet has kind of taken over the younger generations and I've noticed them kind of lose focus easier.
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So I don't think an iPad or computer would really help.
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I think that computers should be introduced to first years in school, so when you're about six years old, because I believe that there is a need to develop a habit with computers so that the children can understand that they could be a tool for education and not only for fun.
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We've also been hearing from students around the world about how they would feel if something similar was introduced in their school.
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Hello, my name is Yoo Jin and I'm currently living in South Korea.
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I personally believe in the power and potential of paper learning, because I think it's much more based on actual experience using our hands or our eyes or every part of our body.
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I like to suggest to use paper books, particularly in school, because it's very important for students to have a chance to do a kind of critical thinking without digital devices.
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And it's also very important for them to secure their own spaces to be creative.
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Hi, my name is Lihle Ngcobo, I am from South Africa.
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Honestly, if my school decided to get rid of laptops and go back to books and pens and paper only, I think I would feel very limited.
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I'm too used to technology now, and traditional learning methods are still important, yes, but technology makes learning more effective and makes it more flexible and interactive.
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I think having both technology and books is also the best to banning.
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And Maddy, we also asked a teacher what they think about this.
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I am a math tutor in an academy in Doyen Academy Enugu.
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You know, without screens, students tend to concentrate much longer, hand written notes, reading physical books and face to face discussion boost retention and critical thinking.
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Improved health is also another benefit to consider.
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Less of screen fatigue.
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It also helps with eye strain, sleep issues.
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They come from six plus hours of screen time.
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So Maddy, what are the benefits of this approach of going back to textbooks, pens and paper?
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And is there any evidence that it might actually help these falling literacy rates and help education more generally?
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Yeah. So this is quite a complex topic. So I spoke to a brain researcher who's done a big overview of some of the research, and she pointed out a few key things. So the first thing is just the pure distraction of having a screen in the classroom.
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So if you're writing an essay and someone else is supposed to be writing an essay, but they're actually messing around on YouTube, that's going to be in your field of vision and potentially distract you.
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I know that feeling.
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Secondly, reading on screens can make it harder to process and remember information compared to looking at information in a book or writing something down on paper.
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There are also some quite worrying studies looking particularly about the excessive use of screen time on very young children that can even affect brain development amongst preschool children.
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So things like their language skills, how they react in certain situations.
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So it's this kind of evidence that has got Swedish politicians worried about the potential use of screens.
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But I think it's really important to remember there's also a lot of scientific research talking about the benefits.
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Digital tools can be really good if you've got special educational needs like dyslexia.
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How these tools can help teachers understand better how students are performing and focusing. They can be really engaging.
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So there's evidence on both sides. And I think now, really a lot of the debate is about, well, how do we get the right balance?
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So what might that balance actually look like in practice?
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They've really been going hard with this kind of messaging and saying we want to reduce screen time, and we're going to do that by spending a lot of money giving schools grants so that they can introduce more books, they can have more school libraries and school librarians.
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And by changing some of the laws so it's no longer compulsory to use tablets in preschools.
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In fact, that's now actively discouraged.
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They're being asked not to do that anymore.
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There's also a ban on using mobile phones in schools coming in later this year, even for educational purposes.
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But I think it's also important to point out the onus is really on schools and teachers to figure out how to do this.
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The curriculum hasn't actually changed.
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We're expecting changes to the curriculum in 2028.
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So there's a lot of discussion really at the moment about how to get that balance right and what is the right solution to help prepare students for a digital future, but also perhaps get them looking at screens a bit less in class.
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This taps into just one of the biggest conversations of our time.
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I mean, the whole discussion about banning mobile phones and social media in schools is happening in countries around the world.
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And what you said about literacy levels falling in Sweden was really interesting because literacy levels are falling elsewhere too.
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Also in the US, for example. Do you think we're going to see more of this, of other countries going back to using books, pens and paper?
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So I think a lot of countries are looking at what Sweden is doing now.
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Sweden was at a bit of an extreme, and now it's swinging back.
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And some of the researchers and politicians I spoke to said, you know, when they're going around and doing their job, speaking at conferences and things, it's all that people want to talk to them about.
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They're very curious.
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And we have seen some of Sweden's neighboring countries, like Denmark and Norway also investing in bringing books back to the classroom.
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But then we're also seeing some countries going in a different direction.
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So Estonia, just over the water, the Baltic Sea from here in Sweden, they're investing really heavily in AI tools, in digital textbooks for students.
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Same thing going on in South Korea. So I think we're going to see a lot of people just really debating what is the right answer.
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And we're not really going to know until or even if we have children going very heavily back on the analogue tools and then potentially measuring them in ten years time.
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So we're going to have to wait and see really.
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We actually just did an episode quite recently on how AI is making it harder for grads to get entry level jobs, and how students are going to have to adapt to this and learn how to use new tech to their advantage.
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So, you know, are people saying that going back to analogue tools in schools might not be the best approach in the world that we live in, that it could dent digital literacy when actually this generation, Gen Z, is the generation that needs it most to be able to get into the workplace.
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Yeah, this has been a big debate here in Sweden.
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I mean, Sweden is a place with a lot of billion dollar startups, companies like Spotify and Klarna, they come from here.
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A really sort of digital first workforce.
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And so there is a worry that if kids aren't learning as much on these tools as they were in the past, what's that going to mean for the next generation of entrepreneurs?
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Twenty seven, I think it was computer science and education professors, came out and wrote a big article about this in one of the Swedish newspapers last year. I would say in the last couple of months, we've heard more from the government on this.
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They've said, well we also want to have an AI strategy in schools.
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We do also need to make it important that teenagers learn about the opportunities and challenges of using AI and other digital platforms.
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So I think they're trying to get the balance right at the moment, but it's a bit of a muddle, I would say between this very much screen free back to book strategy and then how do we stay as a very tech forward nation.
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So the current generation is possibly the guinea pigs for how the next generation might turn out if this measure is introduced more widely.
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Maddy, it's been really interesting chatting to you. Thank you.
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Thanks. Great to be on the show.
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Before we go, I want to flag an episode that we did a while back on the evidence behind banning social media and phones.
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And you can watch that right here on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.
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And you can see me reveal just how many hours a day I spend on my phone.
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And I also want to shout out some of the comments that we got on that episode.
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So Emilly said that in Brazil, telephones are prohibited in schools by law.
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That's something that we are seeing in more and more countries.
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And Leon said that it's a really interesting discussion.
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It's such a tough balance between protecting kids and letting them learn how to use tech responsibly.
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And that rings true of what I was talking about with Maddy today.
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It's that balance and how to get it right.
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So thank you for those comments. Please keep them coming.
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You can leave us a comment right here on the BBC World Service YouTube channel on Instagram @bbcwhatintheworld or on WhatsApp.
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I'm Hannah, this is What in the World from the BBC World Service and we'll see you next time.
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