> The students that completely check out, often check out regardless of if there's a computer. Computers don't encourage that behavior, computers make it easier to hid it.

That's simply not true in my experience. A substantial fraction of teenagers cannot control their temptation to interact when they receive a message. I lose otherwise-diligent students when they have laptops out.

Our environment got much more strict with device use in the past year, and my effort in classroom management has fallen by half and I'm getting better results. (Yes, an anecdote).

The remaining things I'm cracking down on are things that feel better to have around, like spontaneous conversations that are quasi-on-topic but disruptive, instead of a student just vanishing into a phone. The former is terrible, and the latter is engagement that needs to just be refocused.

> Personally I am much much more productive working with some background music. Absolut silence and a phone/computer free environment makes it easier for me to lose focus. A caveat, I have ADHD, I know my experiences won't translate directly to the general population.

Many students with disabilities have an accommodation permitting white noise or music when working in a silent room. I'm fine with this (though I do worry a little bit about test integrity).

> my school district has shifted to google classroom for assignments

I'm not at all complaining about digital communication with students and digital management of assignments. Instant feedback via a digital gradebook is very nice; being able to communicate by email with students keeps my office hours for the students who need them the most.

> I don't know if students are less likely to socialize with other students outside their preferred social group based on phones.

Oh, big text groups may be great outside of school. But, at school on a break, given the choice between watching Crunchyroll on a phone or talking to someone outside your close social circle, students will prefer Crunchyroll. The end result of this is that cliques become more insular and powerful.

> I think there needs to be a different much bigger discussion on reorienting teaching and testing to be computer aided. Senior year, in physics I got to do a computer aided lab where I used a depth sensor to measure and plot the displacement of an object. From there it was possible to see the gravitational constant.

Technology use in education can be great. e.g. I expose middle school students to linear regression in Desmos before they have all the tools to fully understand it mathematically, so they get the "gist" of fitting data. Also, Gimkit, etc, are awesome for formative assessment--- students get a "game" and I get instant feedback of students that need help and topic areas where the whole class is weak. And various simulations are very useful.

But it needs to be intentional. Most edtech is crap, and it comes with a lot of problems, too.

I'm glad to use technology where it makes sense... I'm also glad to teach e.g. computer architecture and machine language programming mostly with pencil and paper. I try to keep the "getting out the computers" rare and exciting, and a privilege so that students do not abuse it.

> It feels appalling to me that calculator/excel literacy is so poor for graduating high schoolers and undergrads.

We don't do much to teach Excel, but in my student population, literacy with calculators and computer algebra systems, etc, is very very high.

(I did have a bunch of students in my Spacecraft Systems Engineering class do a big time series model in Google Sheets with numerical integration to model power and thermal budgets... and our science classes do use Excel/Sheets a little bit... but much less than the calculators).