As someone who is neurodivergent, reading this sparked something in me. A lot of the time, in school, expectations are the same for every student. We're expected to be good in the same ways. A lot of what kept me from learning to accept how my mind worked came from not being given many chances to do things in a way that was comfortable for me. Projects often had strict guidelines made with more normative people in mind. The opportunity for self differentiation in a way which is celebrated is core for a child's development.

A previous reading mentioned how many students were the tech experts of their families. In general, it is the younger generations who are most in tune with newer technologies. This creates an inherent problem with using technology in the classroom: much of the time, the teacher isn't the expert on it. I think incorporating technology in the training of teachers is crucial for allowing them to use it themselves.

While it is important to pay attention in school, and I don't think the kids should have been allowed to play the game, there is a certain hostility to this kind of disciplinary action that feels depressingly counter productive. The previous school had the right idea in a number of ways - people use things like games as a means of self expression and of practicing cognitive skills. Being very engaged with something, even if it's not part of the curriculum, is healthy and good. Plus, it it's a kind of engagement which the school can't provide but that the developing brain craves, then it forms a hostile relationship between the school and the student.

This reminds me of the idea that different people learn best in different ways, and so it's important to have a lot of different means of teaching material. I wonder how much overlap there is between designing for disabilities and designing to help students who work best with different types of teaching.

We've seen in this class several examples of how these tools can have super unfortunate messages baked into them. We often think of them as fairly sterile and neutral, but there are all kinds of pitfalls. Tools, unlike teachers, aren't cognizant of all their students - it's detached, and tools can't tell when something is harming a child. Using them as a replacement to person to person instruction is a recipe for disaster.

This is incredibly distressing to me. Many of these tools are going to be used by children, which means that the information that gets collected is going to be about children. Children are especially vulnerable to advertising, which makes it especially dangerous for info to be collected on them.

Minimizing frustration is very important: the mindset you're in when learning is crucial to the learning process. Being upset will make you retain less information and will make you less disposed towards learning more about the subject. A lot is riding on UX.

This is incredibly important as a concept. As someone with a disability, I know just how hard it can be to not feel shame for how I put a burden on other people, however small the burden may be. Just asking for help can be a task in and of itself, and being afraid to can cause someone to not get help. Being able to not need to find (and, as shown later, being able to understand) the tools you need cuts out that middleman.

What's interesting about this is that it is some accessibility features, like these, actually make the content easier for everyone. There are a spectrum of people who struggle with different kinds of problems like these, so putting in the effort for this will help much more than the disabled minority.

I took a class on child development. I wonder at what point in development this stops being a risk.

I don't think the amount of research is rarely the problem. Rather, I think it's trying to formulate it into quick soundbites and broad-reaching rules that clouds things. Whether technology hurts or helps learning is likely based on a large number of factors which aren't so easily summarized.