Increased technology use during the COVID-19 pandemic has a lingering effect on young students
By: Eli Dahmah May 1, 2024. Jessica Swanson, a 5th-grade teacher at Salem Hills Elementary, has been teaching for 17 years and has never seen students so reluctant to do their work. “I’ve got kids with pages of missing work that I never used to see. Pages and pages and pages, where I haven’t even been able to even give them a grade because there is so much missing,” said Swanson. “That’s definitely post-pandemic.” Students use iPads in the classroom to supplement their learning, but they are missing out on learning basic skills in school before technology was integrated into the classroom during the pandemic such as handwriting, spelling and grammar. Salem Hills Elementary school in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. (Eli Dahmah) An increase in personal device dependence for children is directly affecting their grades, according to parents and teachers in Minnesota. Schools can use personal devices such as iPads to enhance their learning capabilities, but dependence on those devices cause...