Group items tagged

Risk Taking

This means teens literally cannot come to a decision as fast as an adult.

scans showed that the reward center of the teen brain became much more active in the company of their peers

“Adults didn’t grow up with social media, and so they only look for the bad, and see scary stuff like cyberbullying and sexting” he says. “They don’t realize that 90 per cent of kids use social media for really good things, like making friends.”

“Teens are simply doing on social media what they have done for decades, using social relationships to experiment and test behaviours and values they will use as adults” says Andersen.

“The role of parents is to model appropriate behaviour for their kids and to develop expectations with their kids around social media use. We can’t just hand them a cellphone and cross our fingers.

We also know, from research around the world, that when asked about bullying, adults in the school give themselves much higher marks for anti-bullying intervention and effectiveness than students give those same adults.

Adults are as addicted—if not more addicted—to technology as teenagers.  

adults’ smartphone addiction telepressure: “the combination of a strong urge to be responsive to people at work through message-based [information and communications technologies and] a preoccupation with quick response times.”

It’s worth considering: When we criticize teens who are glued to their screens, are we offering wise advice? Or are we projecting our own mixed feelings onto them?

Digital Information Literacy. In this digital age with information at our fingertips, students AND adults must learn to evaluate and interpret this information

A teacher is not expected to know everyone’s device or operating system. This would be impossible. The students know their device because it is theirs.

A skill that students must learn is how to choose the best app/software for the task at hand. It doesn’t mean that every student in the class has to turn in a PowerPoint. They can each publish something different, such as a Glog, VoiceThread or Prezi, while still meeting the objectives or requirements of the projects.

What is more powerful in education than a student who is guided by an adult who truly cares -- someone who knows your name, who encourages you, and is committed to your success in life?

The keys to beneficial screen time, she explains, are interactivity and adult participation,

These PLTs would challenge teachers to delve deeper into their thinking about how, why, when, how often and who with  Technology can be used in their lessons. Staff meetings alone only brush the surface as 30-40 adults add a single thought to the conversation. PLTs allow for the in depth scaffolding of what is needed.

what we consider to be technology, is totally dependent on when it was introduced into our lives.

Rarely do we refer to it or even think about the car as technology, because it has always been with us.

Educators should not be so arrogant as to think they have the ability to decide whether or not kids can use these tools for learning. The kids do it with, or without adult permission. Any educator has the right to choose to live in a cave, however, they do not have the right to drag their students in there with them.

With today's digital kids, it's the responsibility of parents, teachers, and other adult mentors to join kids on the digital playgrounds and to teach them to be happy and healthy cyber-citizens. Keep reading to learn suggestions for helping kids become happy, healthy cyber-citizens.