adventures of a new mom juggling work and family
Friday, February 2, 2007
Toddler Netizens & children online
Growing up in the 80's is definitely different than today. we had an Apple IIe (I think) in the house with no internet (internet? what was internet back then?) so what did we use the computer for? word processing and some real simplistic games.... and who can forget atari??? spending all that time playing games didn't corrupt us all... we all turned out alright
a lot of my students come from media rich homes (game systems, tvs,computers...) and spend too much time with all this media but yet After reading this article, I realized that some of my students may not have access to a lot of the technologies we talk about... a computer may not be available at home...or if it is, it may not have internet access... i need to be able to provide all of my students with the same technology experience while they are at school so I need to find richer ways to include technology within my 6th grade language arts class so that all of my students can experience the same technologies
Yet in the second article, we see children succeeding in using technology... creativity and imagination both being used... Imagine if I could get my sixth grade students to perform at the level these children were using the online world of Middle Earth... these children were writing poetry, interacting, roleplaying, they were engaged from the moment they got on ... WOW!!! Perhaps I need to find something similar to get my students engaged in using technology in the same way... That would definitely be put to good use in my class...
a lot of my students come from media rich homes (game systems, tvs,computers...) and spend too much time with all this media but yet After reading this article, I realized that some of my students may not have access to a lot of the technologies we talk about... a computer may not be available at home...or if it is, it may not have internet access... i need to be able to provide all of my students with the same technology experience while they are at school so I need to find richer ways to include technology within my 6th grade language arts class so that all of my students can experience the same technologies
Yet in the second article, we see children succeeding in using technology... creativity and imagination both being used... Imagine if I could get my sixth grade students to perform at the level these children were using the online world of Middle Earth... these children were writing poetry, interacting, roleplaying, they were engaged from the moment they got on ... WOW!!! Perhaps I need to find something similar to get my students engaged in using technology in the same way... That would definitely be put to good use in my class...
posted by mamalasky at 2:31 PM
2 Comments:
Hi, I remember the Apple IIe! Wouldn't your kids laugh if they could see it now. Anyway I very much agree that it's important for a teacher to know which of the kids don't have access to technology at home so that the teacher can support those students by giving them more opportunities to learn technology in school. It is never fun to be a "have not" in a world of haves, but in this case lack of economic capital means lack of access, and that will work against a child both in school and in the world beyond.
Definitely, Dina. We have a responsibility to address issues of the Digital Divide as much as we can -- and get all kids access to technologies in school. I think we also have to think about what we have them do -- more complex things that require more thinking than typing up their stories or playing software. Of course, this takes training and experience on the part of the teacher -- and there's a Digital Divide there too.
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