Discussion about the use of technology in schools has been rife and this will only add to the debate.

A year two teacher at Hastings Public School, Robyn Domanski, believes technology is not a problem in itself, but its overuse can be.

“I feel that technology has impacted at school,” she said.

“It’s a great as a resource to engage a student and motivate them to learn, but it does impact, and they forget to use hands-on equipment, play with it and make it and build it and demolish it and discuss it.

“A lot of children are not engaging with each other and it is impacting in schools and at home. We don’t need to rely on technology; just to use it as a tool.”

She says many children do not know how to relate to each other, and things seem a lot more hectic compared to when she was growing up.

“In the scheme of things, children don’t seem to relate and have that resilience to develop their own skills and independence to be stimulated and motivated all of the time,” she said.

Local occupational therapist, Beryl Smith, said technology can have an adverse impact on students and their ability to read and write.

She has also seen an increase of school-aged children requiring treatment for their hand strength and motor skill development.

“We find that increased numbers of school-aged children are presenting with postural (core) stability concerns, as a result of not doing as much climbing, cycling and physical activity as children used to do years ago,” she said.

“Some children don’t crawl as babies, or are hurried through the crawling stage into walking, having spent very little time on their tummies, and pushing up on their arms as babies, which all contribute to depth perception and preparation for handwriting.

“In general, they whole way we live our lives has changed. We do less explorative outdoor activity, less family time, fewer families eating meals around a dinner table - using knives and forks.

 “Developmental trends and current evidence based research suggests that the age at which children are exposed to technology is getting younger and younger.”

Hastings Public School principal Grant Heaton agrees.  

“A lot of those cognitive issues are formed before kids get to school. It is all to do with gross motor and fine motor development,” he said.

“Kids should be rolling, playing, wrestling, climbing, swinging, riding, crawling – they are very important phases of their development.

“My advice to parents would be: before a child gets to school, limit screen time. Get them playing.  Play games as simple as snakes and ladders, rolling plasticine for example, rather than giving them an iPad or putting them in front of a television.”

Although he agrees that technology has the potential to hamper a child’s development, he believes it will benefit students when used in moderation, and that it will be a benefit to use technology for NAPLAN tests.

“I think it’s a positive move if it enables schools to get the data back quicker than the current process,” he said.

“If we can have kids do online tests and we can get the results back in a month, which enables teachers to examine the material and planning which children need what.

“What we can do with Naplan now is marvellous, and this should make things even better and quicker.”