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Katie

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Katie is Currently Reading

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The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning--and How to Help Them Thrive Again

by Jared Cooney Horvath

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Katie said: " This book is a must-read for anyone with a stake in education. If you were moved by The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, you need to read The Digital Delusion. It is the most compelling argument I've seen for a more analog education. It's organi This book is a must-read for anyone with a stake in education. If you were moved by The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, you need to read The Digital Delusion. It is the most compelling argument I've seen for a more analog education. It's organized, it's articulate, it's well-researched - and I could not put it down. I wanted to highlight pretty much every sentence; it's that good and that important. Jared Cooney Horvath makes the research easy to understand (though difficult to swallow) when he thoroughly dismantles the myths about why educational technology is good for kids.

Of course it makes sense that when schools did online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, students would need devices for school - but now that we're back in person, it's time to re-evaluate why everything has to be on a screen. Is it convenient for teachers? You might save time on making copies, but it takes a lot of time to be the device police. Is it good for kids? The data suggest it's not. Is it at least chaper? I thought that doing schoolwork online was cheaper than making copies if the kids already have their devices - until I saw one statistic in this book that *maintaining* tech was costing one group $1 million per year! The rise of AI-powered cheating is just another reason to return to paper-based activities. And a LOT of my colleagues feel the same desire to move back to screen-free education, but when your district has spent millions on devices and slashed your copy budget, we can't make decisions just based on feelings - so Cooney Horvath has given us the irrefutable facts. There are so many specific, actionable resources for parents, teachers, and school leaders in this book, in addition to the wealth of data.

The author is not some kind of irrational extremist; he acknowledges that some students with IEPs or 504s need technological assistance, and he recognizes the difficulty in moving away from established Ed Tech. But looking at the data in this book, we NEED extreme change in education. Maybe the author's tone is harsh at times, but it needs to be.

I wasn't totally sold on offline learning and bell-to-bell phone bans before I read this book, but I am now. It's going to be difficult to make the change, but our kids are worth it.

Please don't listen to the tech billionaires who want to make money off our children; listen to this educator and neuroscientist who actually cares about our kids' wellbeing and learning.

Thank you to Convergent and Harmony for the free eARC. I post this review with my honest opinions. ...more "

50 minutes ago · see review

Katie is currently reading

The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America

by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

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Katie said: " The Ballad of William Parker is history writing at it best. I made the mistake of trying to read it at bedtime, but it was so riveting that I couldn’t put it down. At times, it reads like a novel. It is meticulously researched and beautifully written ...more "

Mar 18, 2026 06:16AM · see review

Katie is currently reading

The Rom-Commers

by Katherine Center (Goodreads Author)

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Dec 07, 2025 04:09PM

See all 24 books that Katie is reading…

Katie’s Quotes

“For it falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

tags: appreciation, love, regret, value

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