I can see the angle for making sure kids start using it before they develop the skills to become independent of it.

Schools are slow, by the time the teachers get around to teaching the sophisticated techniques you use today, those techniques will be obsolete, the new AI models will require completely different style of prompts.

As for critical thinking and reasoning, those are even harder to teach. How can teachers teach what they don't know?

And that means you have to learn without AI to understand when the AI is wrong. This is just how its dangerous to use a calculator without knowing math since you wont spot when you entered things wrongly etc.

It would take a few sessions at most to take someone from 10 years ago and get them fully up to speed with AI tools since they have zero learning curve.

You're wasting effort and teaching an obsolete technology if you try to make primary/secondary education too topical. Students can learn how to decompose a task and how to think critically without ever touching a Large Language Model.

When it introduces Harvard vs. Von Neumann architectures, it doesn't invent some dumb RISC computer to illustrate the difference... No... it makes you learn the actual von Neumann machine! Also Conrad Zuse Z machine.

Cragon's argument is that students will not learn the concept of engineering trade-offs, if presented with a clean "textbook" architecture.

I hated MIX for various reasons, it's sort of in-between simple and kludgy.

[0] Cragon was professor at University of Texas Austin ca 1980. Also the architect of TI's ASC in the 1960s.

For one thing you do not need to do much arithmetic to do algebra, for another estimating and getting a feel for numbers is not the same skill as learning a bunch of arithmetic techniques. No one is going to do long division while shopping.

My contention is that it's feasible to use laptops in classrooms productively, especially considering the value in applications like word processors. Of course it's necessary to balance the educational value with the potential for distraction. A way to minimize the latter is to extend classroom management to address device use, e.g., instilling discipline. I've personally seen it done well and done poorly (often not attempted at all), and given an otherwise healthy classroom setting, it comes down to discipline and ethics that address device use. That comes after tailoring the specific device format (e.g., tablets lending themselves more to entertainment, socially and habitually) to the appropriate grade level (maturity, responsibility, and technical potential increasing with age).

Some classrooms are too disruptive for device use, but that's not inherently a tech problem, even if you blame disruptive classrooms on broader cultural problems stemming from tech's role in society. Other classrooms exist in cultures that reject the necessary classroom management strategies.

It's not my contention that any device format should be used at any grade level and that distractions can be managed by simply saying "don't" and expecting success.

To address your other point above, yes, reading a book is different, often better, than reading on a screen, even for adults, so I'm also not arguing that devices should replace books.