Introducing A Facebook Guide for Educators and Community Leaders Elyse Eidman-Aadahl on Writing in the Digital Age (Big Thinkers Series) Elyse Eidman-Aadahl: Human beings are born storytellers. We're communicators. That's in our DNA, the need to reach out and to communicate. And we do it through voice, we do it through gesture, all those things. But if you think about it, human communication is gone in an instant. So, thinking about this evolution, I always think about three things that even in my lifetime have dramatically changed. Two, we can control our own publication. And the third thing I think of is the opportunity actually to link those computers together to collaborate among people, to create ever more sophisticated maps of content, pieces of content, to build knowledge together, even if actually we've never met and may never meet. Well, just because, of course, the tools that we use to write and publish might be getting ever-easier to use doesn't mean writing itself is any easier. So, now that we can all actually see our writing be published we probably have to engage with the fact that we really are writers.
The Balance of Screen Time "Television rots your brain." In a similar vein, video games turn your mind to mush, and staring at a screen for too long potentially makes you a zombie. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a report suggesting that children under two should not have any screen time. Since the release of that report, numerous studies have emerged to address this issue of screen time, from the 2012 report Facing the Screen Dilemma: Young Children, Technology and Early Education to Lisa Guernsey's Screen Time: How Electronic Media - From Baby Videos to Educational Software - Affects Your Young Child. Particularly when working with elementary teachers, I frequently hear concerns about screen time in the classroom, and they are not wrong. Is it appropriate? Appropriate Use When contemplating screen time, I always come back to this iconic Grover sketch from Sesame Street. Meaningful Interactions The devices are not really valued as portable screens or mobile gaming devices.
Using QR Codes to Differentiate Instruction An expectation of the Common Core Learning Standards is that teachers differentiate their instruction to meet the needs of all children. This includes special education and general education students, as well as English-Language Learners. One of my favorite technology tools, the QR code, can be used to meet the needs of a variety of students in one classroom. A QR (quick response) code is similar in principle to a barcode -- a matrix image that can be scanned using a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet with Internet access. In a differentiated classroom, children are working in groups based on level, interest or learning style. One option is to make QR codes that send each student in your class to the same website and create activities that are differentiated. A second option for using QR codes to differentiate instruction is to create different codes for different groups. Have you used QR codes in your classroom? see more see less
Media Digital vs Visual Literacy - New Literacies Project Digital Literacy: Digital literacy is the use of computers and technology and how someone uses and interacts with it. Essentially it's how you interpret a particular media and translate that into data, images, words, etc. and then evaluate it. Visual Literacy: "Visual images are fast becoming the most predominant form of communication. Students are constantly surrounded by visuals making it a fundamental part of their day to day learning.Visual literacy is interpreting and evaluating images, animations, words, and symbols while also integrating sensory experiences. Visual literacy also includes other elements such as font, texture, size, shape, color, angel, repetition, balance, layout, space, contrast, alignment, proximity and position. Visual literacy can be applied to all different grade levels. *****Click on the teachers tab to find activities/links and other ways visual literacy can be incorporated into the classroom
Prezi University How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting. There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think. You can think of attention as the gateway to thinking.
The 4 Negative Side Effects Of Technology Unraveling new media's effects on children Consuming media, it seems, has far outstripped reading storybooks or playing dress-up as the average American child's favorite pastime. Overall, children between the ages of two and 18 spend an average of almost five-and-a-half hours a day at home watching television, playing video games, surfing the Web or using some other form of media, revealed a 1999 Kaiser Family Foundation report called "Kids & Media @ The New Millennium." Often children multitask, engaging in more than one media-related activity at the same time. How does all this media use affect children's cognitive, emotional and social development? Researchers are only beginning to search for answers, now that society is taking the question seriously. Thanks to pressure from APA and researchers themselves, such attitudes are now changing. Digital children Among the research groups working to fill gaps in the knowledge base is the NSF-funded Children's Digital Media Center project. Educational television The news isn't good.