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FAMILYPARENTING
The Canadian Paediatric Society has released surprising new screen time rules
Stop watching the clock, says CPS. But that doesn't mean parents shouldn't be heavily involved in their kid's media use
BY CHRIS DEACON | JUN 6, 2019
PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO
The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) released new guidelines today for digital media use and screen time for kids aged five to 19. Today's guidelines follow recommendations set out in 2017 that focused on kids aged zero to five. But while those guidelines targeted screen time limits for kids in that age group (no screens at all for infants and toddlers under two, and less than an hour a day for kids two to five), the guidelines for kids and teens focus more on how and when screens are used rather than how long. "We really wanted to highlight that content, context and kids' individual traits are as important as specific screen time limits," says Michelle Ponti, chair of the CPS Digital Health Task Force and lead author on the statement."
When is it cheating? When is it collaboration? This thoughtful article from Common Sense Media provides fine advice for parents (or teachers) on how to talk to kids about digital media and ethics.
"Two years ago when Erick Hanson migrated from history teacher to media specialist he had one big goal in mind: to make the library cool again.
"If kids weren't coming into the library to check out books because they need the information or they just want to read for leisure, where are they going instead?" says Hanson, who works at Pennsylvania's East Pennsboro School District, near Harrisburg.
In a mobile age, books and desktops weren't much of a draw to the library, and foot traffic had seen better days. So he began wondering where kids were going instead and how he could meet them halfway.
"It didn't take long for me to boil that down to YouTube as the major place where they're consuming content," says Hanson. "So the idea came about to turn our student consumers into creators." That year he began EP Media, an after-school YouTube club for both middle and high school students that has blossomed into one of the district's most hands-on, student-driven initiatives."
how new media literacies can be cultivated in students, faculty and staff in ways that deepen our understanding of the world, the university and the community of education in which we live.
"This is number 6 in my blog series on major learning theories. My plan is to work through the alphabet of psychologists and provide a brief overview of their theories, and how each can be applied in education. In the last post we examined the work of Craik and Lockhart on Levels of Processing theory. In this post, we explore the work of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi on Flow Theory. This is a simplified interpretation of the theory, so if you wish to learn more, please refer to the original work of the theorist.
There is an interesting news report on the BBC News website this morning. It is a piece claiming that children who use technology at home are finding that they are not able to concentrate in school. They are not able to focus, claims the report, because 'they're spending so much time on digital games or social media.' Yeah right. It's easy to blame lack of concentration on technology, but what about the quality of the lessons they are attending?
The onus is on teachers to make lessons more interesting, and that is what they are trained to do. Part of the solution might be to incorporate these digital games and social media into some of the lessons. Just how can we engage students more effectively? Here's Flow Theory:"
"The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > 2017 K-12 Edition is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and made possible by mindSpark Learning (formerly known as Share Fair Nation).
The preview provides summaries of the trends, challenges, and important developments in educational technology which were ranked most highly by the 2017 expert panel and will be featured in the official NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > 2017 K-12 Edition set to be released in August, 2017. View the Panel of Expert's work and discussions in the 2017 Horizon.k12 Workspace."
"How can educators teach elementary and middle school students to be critical consumers of news and media? We asked media literacy experts-teachers and librarians-for their best tips. Here's what they had to say."
2012-13, The US department of Commerce ranked 55 industry sectors for their IT intensiveness, education ranked lowest (below coal mining). Education industry that bears the responsibility to prepare children for the world of tomorrow, itself is not ready to embrace the digital revolution with an open mind.
Indeed there are some real risks attached with children using social media and it can’t be taken lightly. But there are also dangers in crossing a road. Do we tell our kids not to cross the road? No, we don’t! We hold their hand and tell them how to do it.
So irrespective of whether or not you as an institution are ready to embrace the new digital ways of teaching, the revolution is already happening. If educators are left behind on social media, they will also fail in the simple role of being cultivators of curiosity.
Pixel Heads Network is dedicated to providing the best shows for digital media creators to entertain you, inform you and teach you in the areas of web, video, digital photography, podcasting, blogging and eMarketing!
Instead of dismissing social media as distracting or destructive, schools should embrace it as an essential part of the curriculum. Not only does this limit the potential for students to abuse the technology, but it opens a new set of valuable educational tools.
"The "maker movement" can play an important role in getting kids interested in innovation and design, and littleBits-which makes easy-to-use electronic building blocks-is finding itself at the center of this movement. Until now, the company has focused mostly on the consumer market, but during a March 8 keynote session, littleBits founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir announced a new kit made specifically for schools.
"We want to unleash the inventor in everyone," Bdeir said.
In a conversation with Education Week, Bdeir said schools need to find ways to make science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education more fun, engaging, and accessible for students.
"I studied engineering, and almost on a weekly basis I wanted to quit," she said. "We need to find ways of approaching STEAM education differently."
Bdeir said her experience in learning engineering as an undergraduate was "completely hands-off; as a result, many other students and I were turned off to it." But when she arrived at the MIT Media Lab for her master's of science degree, "it was the exact opposite. Every week was a new project, a new learning challenge. It was very scary, but also exhilarating and engaging."
That's the experience her company is trying to replicate for students at all levels with the new STEAM Student Set."
"In a "post-truth" era where people are increasingly influenced by their emotions and beliefs over factual information, fact and fiction can be difficult to distinguish, and fake news can spread rapidly through mainstream media sources and social networks. Moreover, fake news is often meant to do harm, by tricking us into believing a lie or unfairly discrediting a person or political movement.
Given this malicious intent, students must learn to approach news and information with a critical eye in order to identify intentionally misleading sources (although recent studies confirm that this is an uphill battle for both adults and young people). Teachers therefore play a crucial role in ensuring that their students develop the skills to decipher the many streams of information available to them."