By Jordan Baker and Deanna Ruseska
A decade ago, parents were encouraging former Shore headmaster Timothy Wright to "get with the program" on technology. It was the future and they wanted their sons to be part of it. But in the few years before his retirement, last December, he noticed a "degree of questioning".
"Towards the end of my time, I got a lot more [saying], 'thank goodness you guys have been cautious about this'," he says.
Perhaps it's the price tags, or the relentless burden of monitoring the online activity of a primary school student with an iPad, but many parents across school sectors are beginning to question why their young children need their own, expensive, device for the classroom.
Jelena Ristic bought her two sons Andrija (left) and Marco (right) iPads when they began kindergarten.Credit: James Alcock
Jelena Ristic is one of them. She was asked to give her children, who attend a school in Sydney's south, access to a device for their homework from kindergarten. With headphones and cover, the bill for an iPad came to more than $500 for each of them.
The school said technology would put students "one step ahead". She didn't agree. "They need to learn the fundamentals first instead of going straight to the iPad," she said. "If they don't learn the basics of pen and paper then they won't want to learn, they would rather do it on an electronic device."
Children need computers, even in primary school; ICT (information and communications technology) is embedded across the curriculum.
Wealthier private schools can afford to supply one-to-one devices, such as iPads, across whole classes, and then pack them away on the shelves overnight. At St Catherine's School in Waverley, for example, the school provides the computers until the end of year 9.
But public schools can't. The NSW Department of Education allocates one device for six students, and if a school wants more, it has to dig into the extra money some of them get for disadvantage, or ask parents to buy them under a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy.
These policies are not compulsory but parents feel pressure to ensure their child isn't the one missing out.
Device policies vary from school to school. Some ask for Apple products, such as a specific kind of iPad. Others Chromebooks. Some give parents a list of specifications – a certain battery life, screen resolution, operating system – which leads, many report, to a confusing shopping experience.
Macquarie University associate professor Matt Bower, an expert in the use of digital technology in education, said schools sometimes specify a particular brand to ensure lessons ran smoothly.
"If you have one child in a class who can't get access, or the software doesn't work on their device, it's time that teachers have to take away from learning," he said.
Students – even those at primary school – are responsible for looking after their own device, another factor that troubles parents. One mother with a son in year 7 welcomed his school's embrace of technology, but worried that the school, like many public schools, had no lockers.
"How is he supposed to play sport or socially interact when he must keep an eye on his device for the full six hours?" she said.
One former public school teacher said devices could be useful, particularly for students with learning difficulties, but problems caused by failure to charge them before school, forgotten passwords and technical difficulties ate into learning time every day, and created long periods in which students became bored and disruptive.
So she avoided them, despite the curriculum requirements. "I wanted my students to succeed," she said. "I looked at my class – students with ADHD, students with trauma and thought, 'this is not worth it'."
Another parent was concerned about how much time her son spent staring at a screen in school. "My teenager sometimes spends every class of the day watching power point [presentations] and taking notes on OneNote. Son [number two is] going to a different high school."
Even parents who support technology are annoyed by the lack of consistency between schools. Many buy one device for their year 5 or 6 student, only to have to buy another one a year or two later for high school. Some veto iPads, others won't let parents buy anything else.
"Parents are genuinely confused and so are students," said Sharryn Brownlee from the Central Coast District P&C.
Queenwood principal Elizabeth Stone, who takes a cautious approach to technology, has heard parents from other schools complain that when their children were told to buy a device for school, they found themselves with the unwanted burden of regulating the use of those devices at home.
"We put parents in an impossible position," she said. "We tell them to be the parent, that there is no substitute for actual supervision by them of their child's activities online, then we create a context where a child has a device with them pretty much 24/7."
As some researchers raise concerns about skim reading on devices, and question whether typed notes are as effective as handwritten ones, some schools have wound back their students' use of one-to-one devices.
Reddam House in Bondi decided to return to paper text books and written note taking after students said they preferred it. "There has been a marked improvement in student engagement, focus and involvement in class," the school said in a statement.
But Dr Bower pointed to research supporting one-to-one devices as a way to increase flexibility, enhance engagement and promote collaboration in the classroom.
"There is research done to show that a [one-to-one device] does result in better learning outcomes and satisfaction," he said.
The challenge was ensuring teachers knew how to use them effectively and didn't think the benefits flowed simply from handing students devices. The same view has been expressed by Microsoft, which in 2018 issued an "intervention" because many teachers didn't understand the difference between entertainment and educational engagement.
"We need to focus our attention on helping teachers understand how they can use it most effectively," Dr Bower said.
Department of Education secretary Mark Scott said students would use technology for the rest of their lives.
"They are going to use it at work, it will be a feature at home, it can be a powerful educational tool," he said. "I don't think the answer is to deny students access to technology, to not recognise technology's presence in our society, but to continue to interrogate what's going to be important."