14 DAY TRIAL // While most technology companies are pushing for students, teachers, and schools to adopt new devices, including tablets and laptops, Edward Timpson, the Minister for Children and Families in the United Kingdom, says this can only be a good thing as long as there’s a balance between the use of technology and the daily activities typical to children.
Speaking at the House of Lords Communications Committee, Timpson pointed out that teachers should be given the right to confiscate iPads from children in schools because using tablets for too long can lead to other problems, including bullying.
Timpson believes that the iPad can also become the cause of other incorporate activities, including harassment, and says that schools must regulate all these issues to find what he calls a “technology balance” that should avoid devices to become a battleground between children and teachers.
“A problem in a number of schools which we’ve sought to address is the iPad or the tablet coming into schools and it forming far too much of the school day’s activities of children and it being used inappropriately for some of the bullying and harassment that we know sadly goes on the back of it,” he was quoted as saying by AI.
Technology in schools still essential for children education
This is undoubtedly a problem that isn’t restricted to the United Kingdom and which is happening in many other countries as well, and encouraging children to do other activities besides working on tablets is a thing that everyone should do these days, not only in schools.
“That’s why we’ve strengthen the powers of headteachers to confiscate and remove material and so on,” the Minister continued. “Children will be spending more of their life living through a tablet. It is the direction we now know is going to be taking hold for the foreseeable future and we have to respond to that.”
It goes without saying that bringing technology in schools is essential for improving the education sector, but Edward Timpson explains that, as long as this is regulated correctly, there shouldn’t be any problem with it. It remains to be seen, however, how tech adoption in school changes in the coming years.