alt Hacker NewsUsing tech also meant you got an iPad because otherwise teachers and IT would be overwhelmed. That the kids were already much more apt at using such devices was secondary.
In the context of general education I can understand the strategy, it could be a useful learning environment, but certainly not if it is about digital education, tech knowledge or general engineering. Nobody becomes an engineer in a prison, you need to give your users freedom.
An iPad absolutely doesn't make kids "better at technology", if anything it makes them worse because it just wraps everything up in a braindead simple package for consumption.
Ironically, Gen Z was supposed to lead the way as "digital natives", but in many ways they are (speaking broadly) much less technically adapt than, say, Gen Xers, because Gen Xers had to struggle to figure stuff out because it hadn't been all wrapped up with a bow yet, and thus we got to understand the details of how thing worked at a deeper, more fundamental level.
I recall reading some articles about how many Gen Zers new to the workplace didn't even understand how file systems or directories worked, because things like iPads largely hide those details from the end user.
And to emphasize, I'm not dumping on Gen Z - they're, like everyone, just a product of the environment they grew up in. But I strongly disagree that getting access to an iPad makes anyone more technologically adept.