In many schools and even states, it's been, rather, a movement to block and bust: no blogs, no cell phones, no IM. We take away the powerful social technologies our kids are already using to learn and, in doing so, tell them their own tools are irrelevant. Or, instead of using the complex and challenging phenomenon of a site such as Wikipedia to teach the realities of navigating information in this new world, we prohibit its use. In fact, at this writing, the U.S. legislature is in the process of deciding whether schools and libraries should have access to any of the potential of the Read/Write Web at all. When you read this, blogs and wikis and podcasts (and much more) may be things that students (and teachers) can access and create only from off-campus.
Vicki Davis on 03 Jul 13I saw this on Fran Drescher's Twitter account from the Cincinnati Business courier and am quite floored by it. Am I the only one who doesn't know this? How about all of the little kids I see where parents are handing them their ipad and smart phones for play purposes. I jusst need to know more but it is based on a study presented at the Pediatric Academic societies meeting in DC. Of course, they recommend hand washing. But pregnant women should be careful - a 10x increase in maternal PBDE's is associated with a 4 point IQ deficit. Of course, we also have the age old question here of causation or correlation. I do think we need to know more and also if the equipment we're purchasing to use with young children has PBDEs in them. If you know more, please leave comments. It does say that some manufacturers are voluntarily phasing these out. "Small children should not touch electronic items such as TVs, mobile phones, computers and other products, according to University of Cincinnati researchers. Chemicals found in such items and in many other products, including older carpets and furniture, can cause behavioral and cognition problems, they have found."
