Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by greenbit on Thursday April 02, 2026 @07:46AM (#47613141)

Having observed a fair amount of computer based primary school, it seems to me anyway that the biggest problem is that kids just can't focus properly that way. Even if the machine is locked down to prevent open internet access, it's just too easy for them to become distracted by the medium itself. Books, pencils and paper may not be flashy, but isn't that actually desirable, in this context?

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by SSLy on Thursday April 02, 2026 @08:16AM (#47613415)

[delayed]

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by amonith on Thursday April 02, 2026 @07:53AM (#47613190)

Yup. As a kid I could "entertain" (distract is the better word) myself by "drawing shapes" with the cursor, highlighting random things, switching between random cells in Excel, or just like... browsing through the system without any plan or reason. Procrastination is hell of a drug.

I'm so lucky I didn't have this in the classroom.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by andrepd on Thursday April 02, 2026 @08:34AM (#47613603)

To be fair, I did entertain myself by drawing comics on my notebook or playing with my pencil and rubber as if they were toy cars.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by amonith on Thursday April 02, 2026 @08:35AM (#47613619)

I drew a lot of doodles and did things like that as well, but I think that they're less visually stimulating and simply "slower" so there's still some brain capacity left for learning.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by buellerbueller on Thursday April 02, 2026 @10:36AM (#47615108)

Congratulations, you were exercising your literacy and art skills.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by HPsquared on Thursday April 02, 2026 @07:57AM (#47613233)

Even doodling on the margin can be distracting. Or doing little tricks with the pencil. But these don't distract the verbal part of the brain as much perhaps.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by argee on Thursday April 02, 2026 @07:53AM (#47613186)

If you open any of my middle school notebooks you'll find around 5-10x more doodles than notes, by surface area.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by bombcar on Thursday April 02, 2026 @09:35AM (#47614287)

It could be that the inability to doodle is actually cramping current students - it might be important to management of boredom?

Digital doodling should be possible; I know I've used the zoom annotation feature to doodle during meetings.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by TaupeRanger on Thursday April 02, 2026 @08:56AM (#47613839)

It's arguably LESS distracting, since you can lock down the available actions on a Chromebook, for example, while I was doodling away in my notebooks as a 90's kid. I don't think you can really make sweeping statements about which is better overall.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by HumblyTossed on Thursday April 02, 2026 @10:06AM (#47614689)

People are saying, oh i used to doodle, blah blah. But doodling in the margins is very HELPFUL for the rest of your brain to focus and memorize what is happening in the lecture.

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Re:Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in... by strokirk on Thursday April 02, 2026 @04:51PM (#47620005)

Sounds interesting! Any good sources on that subject? I find results pointing both against it and for it, but am not a psychologist.

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