this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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yes, I see what you're talking about, and I don't - whatsoever - disagree.
what I'm proposing is only on the student-side: an e-Ink tablet device which contains all curriculum-approved textbooks (within that student's context) alongside note-taking capabilities (via KB or stylus), homework assignment receiving/submission capabilities as well as test/exam receiving/submission capabilities (local zone/time limited), plus other sundry capabilities as the education institution/demands see fit.
But the issue you raise is not WRT the student-held devices but WRT other tech within the tech environment and how they're used.
My experience with this is much more recent-- my time finishing my undergrad degree and in grad school (2012-2016 at Parsons)-- studying, and you find this ironic-- UI/UX. ;)
Now, I can, first-hand, attest to how much I appreciated the instructors who took the time to add the line-by-line "reveal" effects to their powerpoints, so that they could reveal the points they were making as their lectures progressed. these were usually the instructors who had some previous instruction, themselves, in teaching. Some of the other instructors eschewed powerpoimts entirely and just used a whiteboard, or only used the projector to show us pictorial examples during off-the-cuff lectures.
nonetheless, I fully understand the point you're making-- but this is much more a point to be made about effective teaching methods, and less a point about technology/"screens" overall, IMO-- but, still, a valid point-- just one WRT overall teaching in general today.
I'm trying to address the context of "what tech are students holding in their hands". but what you're saying does play into that.
systemic problems require systemic solutions. you and I are both discussing two separate branches of that system. another is these vultures of "total solution providers", these private companies who hardly know what they're doing, milking school districts out of tens of millions, just to provide shitty, barely functional "total solutions" that do the most damage. but I won't even get started on Canvas or its cohorts...
No. The technology itself is the problem. Tablets and laptops are not suited for ordinary classroom instruction. I don't care if they're delivered by a billion dollar private equity firm or a ragtag FOSS project.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0020739X.2025.2584340
All this talk of FOSS is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
They proposed a device that has a stylus for input, specifically for handwritten note-taking. You don't make a convincing case with regard to computers in general allegedly not being suited for "ordinary classroom instruction". A computing device can be designed in such a way as to engage the (as you call them) "motor portions" of the brain and not be a distraction, don't you think?
Not in the same way, no. Medium does matter. We are physical embodied beings, and the objects we interact with matter. A dynamic digital medium will always be more distracting than a static paper one. Regardless of how much you lock the devices down, a dynamic backlit digital screen is intrinsically more distracting than pen and paper. And paper requires finer motor control than writing tablets, as the paper isn't filled with text correction technology and auto-fill. Plus the simple tactile experience is more neurally engaging than a blank screen. It takes more skill to write on paper than it does a tablet.
Most of all, pen and paper is so much better at putting a student in the right place for learning. People use tablets primarily for entertainment. Students in high school today have been using tablets since they were toddlers. We're handing them the same devices that were used to distract them at age 2, and then expecting them to be able to maintain focus. When you engage with a tablet, your brain is subconsciously expecting diversion and entertainment. When you make a choice to write something by hand, you're activating an entirely different set of cognitive frameworks than when writing on a pad.
Remember, all knowledge is social and situational. No knowledge exists in a vacuum. Human beings are not computers you just upload software into. Students often have trouble transferring specific skills from one class setting to a comparable but slightly different one. They may be able to read a graph in a math class, but struggle interpreting the same kind of graph in the context of a science class.
We are physical beings with physical bodies and physical minds. Medium matters.