Krishnan recounts pandemic-era screen reliance and proliferation of ed tech
Krishnan describes how the 2020 pandemic forced children onto Chromebooks and Zoom, and how digital devices have since proliferated in classrooms and homes, creating ongoing negotiations over screen time at home.
And we are also honored to have joining us today, too, our public advocate, Jumaane Williams.
We're also joined by many parents and advocates who share the same concern about how much technology our students are relying on to learn in the classroom.
As parents, we all remember the dark days of 2020, where we sat over breakfast with our young kids in front of their Chromebooks.
We logged on to Zoom and Google Classroom, figured out how to use them after many tech issues logging on, figured out how to mute on Zoom, and then tried to finish up, after all of that, our cup of coffee while our children were learning on the screens.
And our children spent hours of the day, unfortunately, learning on the screen.
After the pandemic ended, we were all happy and breathed a collective.
sigh of relief when they went back to school.
Our kids finally got to see their friends and their beloved teachers again.
And we would get to close those Chromebooks.
Or so we thought.
But in the years since 2020, we've seen the proliferation of digital devices and screens in our classrooms and our homes.
They are pervasive now.
For years after the pandemic, I've watched my children lug the same heavy Chromebooks to school, home, and back and forth every single day.
We've had protracting negotiations at home about screen time, YouTube, and the online apps that they want to play that are on their DOE-issued laptops.
And I know every parent in this room knows those negotiations, battles, all too well.