Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

For instance, a recent longitudinal study of 11,000 British children found that those who watched TV for 3 hours or more a day at age 5 had a small increase in behavioural problems two years later compared with those who watched for under an hour. But they found no effects at all for those who played computer games.

"It doesn't say anything about what you're using that time for."

You’ve written that too many teachers are “un-Googleable.” What do you mean by that and why does it matter? What I mean is that too few teachers have a visible presence on the Web. The primary reason this matters is that the kids in our classrooms are going to be Googled—they're going to be searched for on the Web—over and over again. That's just the reality of their lives, right? So they need models. They need to have adults who know what it means to have a strong and appropriate search portfolio—I call it the “G-portfolio.” But right now—and this is my ongoing refrain—there’s no one teaching them how to learn and share with these technologies. There's no one teaching them about the nuances involved in creating a positive online footprint. It's all about what not to do instead of what they should be doing. The second thing is that, if you want to be part of an extended learning network or community, you have to be findable. And you have to participate in some way. The people I learn from on a day-to-day basis are Googleable. They’re findable, they have a presence, they’re participating, they’re transparent. That’s what makes them a part of my learning network. If you’re not out there—if you’re not transparent or findable in that way—I can’t learn with you.

Why do you think many teachers are not out there on the Web? I think it’s a huge culture shift. Education by and large has been a very closed type of profession. “Just let me close my doors and teach”—you hear that refrain all the time. I’ve had people come up to me after presentations and say, “Well, I’m not putting my stuff up on the Web because I don’t want anyone to take it and use it.” And I say, “But that’s the whole point.” I love what David Wiley, an instructional technology professor at Brigham Young University, says: “Without sharing, there is no education.” And it’s true.

What could a school administrator do to help teachers make that shift? Say you were a principal? What would you do? Well, first of all, I would be absolutely the best model that I could be. I would definitely share my own thoughts, my own experiences, and my own reflections on how the environment of learning is changing. I would be very transparent in my online learning activity and try to show people in the school that it’s OK, that it has value. I think it’s very hard to be a leader around these types of changes without modeling them.

Tião, like the other catadores profiled in the film, is far from an emaciated beggar living out a miserable existence on the way to an early death. But he is humble and has few expectations of earthly glory. Although a social outcast, he organized an association of pickers who live and work in Jardim Gramacho, one of the world’s largest garbage dumps, and likes to think of himself as an environmentalist.

The film — co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley, and photographed by Dudu Miranda — observes this giant landfill from every perspective.

Tião is the most prominently featured of several pickers profiled by the film. Their lives are changed forever when they are chosen to collaborate with the artist Vik Muniz, a São Paulo native who is now based in Brooklyn and is well known for his re-creations of famous artworks using unusual materials. Those pieces include two Mona Lisas — one made of peanut butter, the other of jelly — and a “Last Supper” made of chocolate syrup. For his Sugar Children series, he took snapshots of children on a plantation in St. Kitts and copied the images by layering sugar on black paper and photographing the result. The film observes the creation of his recent monumental series, Pictures of Garbage, for which Mr. Muniz, who grew up poor, returned to Brazil.

“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, tells the story of this conflict and of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report this video, Evan Abramson, a 32-year-old photographer and videographer, spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the world’s first climate-change conflicts.”

But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is not only about climate change. It’s also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren.

The video focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.

Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher’s pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves.

What holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original. They strive to earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of their teachers.

only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators,

As early as I can remember, we were told to take notes.

during that conversation, I paid attention to more than just what was being said; I watched eye movement, body language, and every other form of nonverbal communication. I wasn’t just listening, I was engaging in an interaction. It was then that I found myself wondering, how much was I missing in other classes because I was too busy taking notes?

I started to challenge myself not to take notes during other classes and to actively listen, instead

here is ample evidence that writing by hand aids cognition in ways that typing does not: It’s well worth teaching. And I confess I’m old-fashioned enough to think that, regardless of proven cognitive benefits, a good handwriting style is an important and valuable skill, not only when your laptop batteries run out but as an expression of personality and character.

if they have the time and inclination.

Too often, designers of educational materials and activities simply add a thin layer of technology and gaming over antiquated curriculum and pedagogy

But I’m also sure that some students found it very discouraging and disempowering. And the activity put an emphasis on questions that can be answered quickly with right and wrong answers — certainly not the type of questions that I would prioritize in a classroom.

In many cases, the skeptics apply very different standards to new technologies than to “old” technologies. They worry about the antisocial impact of a child spending hours working on a computer, while they don’t have any concerns about a child spending the same time reading a book. They worry that children interacting with computers don’t spend enough time outside, but they don’t voice similar concerns about children playing musical instruments. I’m not suggesting that there are no reasons for concern. I’m just asking for more consistency.