Children and their devices: How to strike the right balance

Our children’s future will be digital-rich and we must prepare them for it.

This was the shared consensus from delegates across 18 countries at the recent International Summit on the Teaching Profession held in Singapore. All delegates affirmed the importance of developing students’ digital skills and competencies.

Together with technical know-how, our students need to think critically when engaging digitally, with print or in person. Those who can navigate skilfully, seamlessly, and concurrently across these three modes to manage the vast information will thrive in this new world. They have to constantly ask: What is true? What is wise? How do I use information across modes to solve a problem? How do my online and offline activities interact and impact the two worlds?

How we help our young make use of digital devices for purposeful learning – will be key to honing these skills.

A blended approach

In Singapore, we have taken a blended approach to using digital devices. Children’s ages, their needs and readiness are among the factors considered as teachers provide a blend of in-person and digital learning experiences in school. Interweaving meaningful hands-on learning, outdoor experiences and harnessing the potential of technology is an art.

As a rule of thumb, younger children need to learn through concrete experiences, using all senses. This is connected to the healthy development of the brain.

Take for example how we cultivate reading for pleasure in students. Researchers Chin Ee Loh and Baoqi Sun (2022) from the National Institute of Education have found that our students clearly prefer to read print for leisure, and they do so longer in print. Digital devices, even for older students, are preferred only when scanning the news. Leisure reading is correlated with language proficiency, academic achievement, and lifelong learning outcomes. Recent international research shows a significant negative relationship between digital leisure reading and reading comprehension for primary school pupils. The same relationship is positive in the case of older students.

In other words, digital leisure reading, does not work well for younger students.

Another example is handwriting. Writing by hand is associated with improved spelling and stronger and quicker writing ability later on. Complex memory and knowledge mapping processes occur when students apply handwriting to notetaking, or consolidate their knowledge through mind mapping.

A study by Askvik, van der Weel & van der Meer (2020) found that fine handwriting movements engaged multiple senses simultaneously and triggered brain activation patterns that were distinct from the act of typing. Children at an early age must be exposed to handwriting and drawing activities, they argued, to establish neuronal patterns beneficial for learning.

Handwriting seems to also have a distinct advantage for mother tongue language learning. The recognition and imprint of vernacular characters and shapes, sounds and linguistic meaning are reinforced more through handwriting than typing.

Therefore, the Ministry of Education (MOE) introduces digital learning gradually. We provide devices in primary schools for upper primary pupils to use in moderate amounts for learning where meaningful. Self-regulation increases with maturity and with adult teaching and reinforcement. Secondary school students are then equipped with personal learning devices (PLDs) alongside taught routines and rules for use. Every PLD is monitored and safeguarded via the Device Management Application (DMA). Parents can customise the DMA and regulate students’ after-school use.

MOE’s approach to piloting the use of interactive digital textbooks (IDTs) since 2023, is research-informed. Upper secondary school students studying history, geography and social studies make use of IDTs with complementary print learning materials. The IDTs are integrated in the Singapore Student Learning System where students can learn safely and socially with their teachers and peers. Interactive learning features like simulations, videos, polls and quizzes help students visualise the abstract and construct their understanding. Content can also be updated easily and customised by teachers.

At times students may prefer their own hard-copy notes, for instance, when they are revising for an assessment.

Our approach is to blend the digital with analogue. Digitally transformed learning in schools does not mean that it is digital-only.

Raising digitally able students

Some have pointed to recent research correlating time spent on digital devices with poor cyberwellness outcomes. These claims make a bogeyman of digital devices and lack nuance. While the potential for device addiction exists, we ought not to abandon them entirely.

The Ministry of Health discourages screen time for children under 18 months of age. For primary school children, screen time (including smartphones) should be active, moderate and supervised.

We prefer primary school pupils to not bring smartphones to school while older students will benefit from schools’ clear rules on the appropriate use of personal mobile phones. This helps students focus on the school curriculum.

But beyond school, the management of personal mobile phones can be challenging. According to the Ministry of Communication and Information’s Online Safety Poll 2023, one in four parents was not aware of online child safety tools that could help filter out harmful content. The same poll reported that one in two parents confirmed that children had encountered harmful online content. A poll conducted by Touch Community Services and the Media Literacy Council in 2022 indicated that four in 10 parents had faced difficulties getting their children to share their online activities.

If we fear our children meeting strangers in playgrounds, we should be even more concerned about allowing them to wander unfettered through the jungles of the internet.

Parents and educators in Singapore need to work together to harness the potential in digital learning with strong self-regulation. Students need our help to be future-ready.

For older students, personal mobile phones provide access to information, convenience and relationships that are supported through digital means. The large majority heed our cyberwellness instruction, supervision, and modelling.

A study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2022, surveying Singaporean 15-year-olds, found 11 per cent of students felt pressured to be online and answer messages during class. The same study found 16 per cent of students felt anxious without their digital devices near them. These are heartening outcomes comparable with students in Estonia, but we still have much room to improve.

Let us all play our part in helping the next generation thrive – parents to skilfully supervise their children; schools to teach students about the safe and responsible use of technology; and the community to role-model responsible online behaviours.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.