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Sean McHugh

Four ways to tell if an educational app will actually help your child learn - 0 views

  • several well-worn principles that parents, educators and app developers can use to determine what is truly educational and what is simply masquerading as such
  • minds-on, not minds-off
  • actively solving problems and thinking deeply
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  • engaging, not distracting
  • meaningful
  • it is crucial for children to know why this knowledge is actually important
  • social interaction
Sean McHugh

Nine things everyone should know how to do with a spreadsheet | Macworld - 0 views

  • the total count is irrelevant, as long as the app has the functions you need
  • use basic formulas to do basic arithmetic on cell contents. But functions, which let you manipulate text and numbers in many other ways, are how you really unlock the potential of spreadsheets
Sean McHugh

Parenting for a Digital Future - Media literacy - everyone's favourite solution to t... - 0 views

  • Media Literacy … provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet.
  • The more that the media mediate everything in society – work, education, information, civic participation, social relationships and more – the more vital it is that people are informed about and critically able to judge what’s useful or misleading, how they are regulated, when media can be trusted, and what commercial or political interests are at stake. In short, media literacy is needed not only to engage with the media but to engage with society through the media.
  • any media literacy strategy requires sustained attention, resources and commitment
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  • let’s get media literacy firmly embedded in the school curriculum
  • it might be wise to calculate the cost also – to individuals, to society – of not promoting media literacy, of having a population with insufficient critical knowledge to manage its digital safety, security, privacy, civic and health information needs or consumer rights.
  • it is commonly said that media literacy is, at heart, critical thinking (demand evidence, question sources, analyse claims, consider what’s at stake for whom, etc.) and, therefore, should be taught right across the curriculum from history to science or English
  • In order to enable citizens to access information, to exercise informed choices, evaluate media contexts, use, critically assess and create media content responsibly, they need advanced media literacy skills.
  • Media literacy should not be limited to learning about tools and technologies, but should aim to equip individuals with the critical thinking skills required to exercise judgement, analyse complex realities, recognise the difference between opinions and facts, and resist all forms of hate speech
  • Work to get media literacy firmly embedded as compulsory in the school curriculum.
  • Media education is a long term solution – it takes thought-through pedagogical strategies and years of teaching, not a one-shot campaign
Sean McHugh

We are not addicted to smartphones, we are addicted to social interaction - 0 views

  • A new study of dysfunctional use of smart technology finds that the most addictive smartphone functions all share a common theme: they tap into the human desire to connect with other people
  • it is our desire for human interaction that is addictive—and there are fairly simple solutions to deal with this
  • Could smartphone addiction be hyper-social, not anti-social
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  • the desire to watch and monitor others—but also to be seen and monitored by others—runs deep in our evolutionary past
  • the most addictive smartphone functions all shared a common theme: they tap into the human desire to connect with other people.
Sean McHugh

Computer-supported collaborative learning - Best Evidence in Brief - 0 views

  • The use of computers, when combined with collaborative learning, positively affected: Knowledge gain (+0.45) Skill acquisition (+0.53) Pupil perceptions (+0.51) Group task performance (+0.89) Social interaction (+0.57) Lastly, extra technology-related learning tools during CSCL positively affected knowledge gain (+0.55), as did the use of strategies (+0.38).
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    Aa meta-analysis on the effects of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).
Sean McHugh

Ten Kid-Friendly Rules for Texting With Respect and Dignity | Psychology Today - 0 views

  • Technology makes it too easy to say things that are impulsive or unkind
  • Your words can be misinterpreted, manipulated, and forwarded without your permission
  • Once you share something online, you lose control of where it goes, who can forward it, who will see it, and how it can potentially be used
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  • Never post a photo or message that you wouldn’t want “everyone” to be able to view.
  • always be kind
  • In this immediate world of instant messaging and constant contact, you may be tempted to say whatever comes to your mind in a given moment. Don’t give in to the temptation.
  • walk away from toxic friendships
  • quality over quantity
  • make sure that the only person who is speaking for you is YOU
  • It is in your best interests not to let any friend—even a best friend—post or text from your account. Ever.
Sean McHugh

GENER(aliz)ATIONS - Alfie Kohn - 0 views

  • It’s an idea that rational people should view with a generous measure of skepticism if only because each of these labels refers to something on the order of 80 million people.
  • variations (in beliefs and behaviors) within each generational cluster are typically far greater than those between them.
  • If you look at what their underlying needs and aspirations are, there’s no difference at all between this new generation of workers and my generation and my father’s generation
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  • All those kids glued to social media, for example? That’s not because of who the kids are; it’s because they’ve come of age when the technology is available. In fact, a recent survey found that older adults actually use social media more than younger adults do.
  • Sometimes these bogus claims are due to a tendency to describe as generational shifts what are actually developmental differences:
  • the authors whose research showed this to be true have also debunked conservative psychologist Jean Twenge’s sweeping claims about Millennials (which, in her telling, almost always reflect poorly on them). For example, assertions about their supposedly higher levels of narcissism, which are catnip to the media, rest on embarrassing methodological errors.
  • we should be very cautious about offering any generalizations about an entire generation.
Sean McHugh

How Facebook is taking mind reading from sci-fi to reality - The Verge - 0 views

  • Facebook’s plans for two ambitious projects: one to develop a system for letting you type with just your thoughts, and another to let you “hear” using vibrations on your skin. This would be done through brain-computer interfaces — devices that can read neural activity and translate it into digital signals, and vice versa
  • Facebook’s goal is to develop something it calls a “brain click — a way to complete tasks in augmented reality using your mind. You could brain click to dismiss a notification that popped up on your AR glasses, for example
  • letting people type with their thoughts
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  • send discrete messages delivered through touch
  • extract semantic meaning from touch, to create what just might amount to a new form of language
  • exploring how optical imaging could get real-time data from the brain and translate it into words. The resulting device could be something like a neural cap worn on the head, or some type of band that stretches around the back of the skull.
  • literally getting inside your head and under your skin.
  • the technology should be designed to operate only during the final part of the speech process, right before your brain tells your mouth to start moving. The thought is already formed, and you have made an explicit choice to share it.
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    Maybe this is the tech that could replace the keyboard, still a few decades away though.
Sean McHugh

'How my pupils' writing struggles were transformed' | Tes - 0 views

  • with schools moving towards 1:1 devices in the classroom – assistive technology for writing is no longer inaccessible or convoluted. It is, in fact, readily available, accurate and remarkably intuitive
  • The results have been truly astounding. Pupils that would work hard to scrawl one or two lines of text in a 45-minute writing session are now producing two paragraphs of well structured writing in 10 minutes.
  • with the mechanics of writing greatly reduced, there is far more time for pupils to spend on word choice, phrasing and editing their work
Sean McHugh

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/07/us/video-games-child-sex-abuse.html - 0 views

  • Sexual predators and other bad actors have found an easy access point into the lives of young people: They are meeting them online through multiplayer video games and chat apps
  • Games are a common target, but predators are also finding many victims on social platforms like Instagram
  • Six years ago, a little over 50 reports of the crimes, commonly known as “sextortion,” were referred to the federally designated clearinghouse in suburban Washington that tracks online child sexual abuse. Last year, the center received over 1,500
    • Sean McHugh
       
      Most likely migrating from other haunts like playgrounds and shopping malls.
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  • Almost every single teenage boy in America — 97 percent — plays video games, while about 83 percent of girls do
    • Sean McHugh
       
      And you can bet those percentages are equal or favouring girls when it comes to chat.
  • promote “healthy gaming habits” and develop students’ science and technology skills
  • Parents aren’t telling their kids at 6 years old, ‘Keep your clothes on online
  • It had nothing to do with gameplay
  • Parents aren’t telling their kids at 6 years old, ‘Keep your clothes on online,’” Mr. Halpert said. “But they need to.
  • Minecraft, said it planned to release software early next year that could recognize some forms of grooming and sextortion. The company said it would offer the software to other tech businesses free of charge
  • a 26-year-old Ohio man was charged with sexual exploitation after claiming to be 13 on Yubo and luring a 12-year-old girl, the authorities said
    • Sean McHugh
       
      I guess most systems are focused on the opposite, kids pretending they are adults...
  • But the solution many game developers and online safety experts return to is that parents need to know what their children are playing, and that children need to know what tools are available to them. Sometimes that means blocking users and shutting off chat functions, and sometimes it means monitoring the games as they are being played. “‘Literacy’ is the word I say a billion times a day
  • parents should react carefully when their children report encounters with online predators. Punishing the children — no more video games or social media, for example — could backfire by pushing them into even more dangerous places for their online activity.
Sean McHugh

Our new research shows that reading both in print and on screens benefits children's li... - 0 views

  • Our new research into digital reading has found that young people who are the most engaged with reading are more likely to read both on paper and on screen than their peers who have low engagement with reading
  • Pupils eligible for free school meals and boys with the lowest levels of reading engagement are two of the groups most likely to benefit from using digital formats
  • young people who read above the level expected for their age read fiction both in print and on screen
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  • Digital reading is becoming an increasingly important part of children’s literacy lives. It gives children new and exciting ways to access a wide range of reading materials and is particularly effective at getting disengaged groups of children excited about reading
Sean McHugh

Being a Better Online Reader | The New Yorker - 0 views

  • there’s still no longitudinal data about digital reading. As she put it, “We’re in a place of apprehension rather than comprehension.” And it’s quite possible that the apprehension is misplaced: perhaps digital reading isn’t worse so much as different than print reading
  • they also need different sorts of training to excel at each medium. The online world, she argues, may require students to exercise much greater self-control than a physical book. “In reading on paper, you may have to monitor yourself once, to actually pick up the book,” she says. “On the Internet, that monitoring and self-regulation cycle happens again and again.
  • Maybe the decline of deep reading isn’t due to reading skill atrophy but to the need to develop a very different sort of skill, that of teaching yourself to focus your attention
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  • The digital deficit, they suggest, isn’t a result of the medium as such but rather of a failure of self-knowledge and self-control: we don’t realize that digital comprehension may take just as much time as reading a book
  • It wasn’t the screen that disrupted the fuller synthesis of deep reading; it was the allure of multitasking on the Internet and a failure to properly mitigate its impact
  • some data suggest that, in certain environments and on certain types of tasks, we can read equally well in any format
  • We need to be aware of the effects of deeper digital immersion, Wolf says, but we should be equally cautious when we draw causal arrows or place blame without adequate longitudinal research
  • Deep-reading skills, Wolf points out, may not be emphasized in schools that conform to the Common Core, for instance, and need to meet certain test-taking reading targets that emphasize gist at the expense of depth. “Physical, tangible books give children a lot of time,” she says. “And the digital milieu speeds everything up. So we need to do things much more slowly and gradually than we are.” Not only should digital reading be introduced more slowly into the curriculum; it also should be integrated with the more immersive reading skills that deeper comprehension requires.
  • Wolf is optimistic that we can learn to navigate online reading just as deeply as we once did print—if we go about it with the necessary thoughtfulness.
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