Hi,
“Kids these days!!”
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Kids these days are the same as they ever were, annoying yes, frustrating, yes but amazingly creative, open minded and positive about the world around them! I think the difference is now they have more platforms to express themselves and their creativity! We are moving into a time when all children have been born into having tech on hand and it is uncharted territory for the majority of parents who would have grown up with no internet, smartphones, twitter or facebook. This is why I feel the role of schools in developing students positive use of tech is so important.
One of my favorite stories from this year is two children from our class who were working on a presentation together. I asked would they be visiting each others house and they gave me a confused look at responded, “No, we’ll just do it online with google slides!” Children will use the technology regardless so I feel our role is to guide them to use it in the most effective way possible.
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I don’t know whether to be interested or sad when I read this article. It has some great ideas and tips but it was first written in 2009!! This is the first thing I want to consider when talking about finding a balance in the classroom. In a classroom setting in a lot of schools having laptops/devices in the classroom is still relatively new. This causes problems, especially with younger children, as until the “novelty” wears of and the students get comfortable with the tech their are going to be a lot more of the distractions and behavior difficulties. Also if tech resources are not freely available to the children it becomes a hurdle to teachers when planning. These hurdles can most effect teachers who themselves are not comfortable with tech and this hurdle gives them an opportunity to back out.
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The idea of a laptop/device for every child has really flourished in some areas or schools and met resistance in others. Some schools seem to be waiting for tonnes of research to prove that mobile devices make a difference to learning. But this research is out there! And even if it wasn’t, schools/parents/teachers need to realise that even if the use if technology consistently during your math lessons results in the children scoring the same on a Math test then the use of tech has been a success. Not only have their Math skills improved just as much as they would have without the tech, but the children have learned a host of other skills including digital literacy, collaboration and communication.
When my school introduced a BYOD scheme is was meant with some resistance from parents who didn’t want their children spending all of the school day in front of a screen or typing up their work instead of writing it. I think it is time for everyone to realise that not all screen time is equal and once tech is used responsibly in schools then this idea of responsible tech use will be carried home for the children. When it comes to the handwriting over typing idea, I always ask parents the same question- “When was the last time you hand wrote something in a professional setting for somebody else to read?” When I ask my friends who don’t work in education the same question the response is usually “I can’t remember”. Obviously this doesn’t mean that children don’t need to practice their handwriting but schools also need to prepare them for the future where they will be communicating via text a lot more frequently.
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I think the ideal balance of tech use will come when communication between parents and schools improves so that everyone is aware of how much tech is being used in the classroom, what students can achieve through tech use and that the benefits of devices are clear.
Now how to get children to put the devices down at the dinner table or to go to sleep? I will worry about that when I have children of my own!!! Image may be NSFW.
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Cheers Paul