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Sean McHugh

Digital media can enhance family life, says LSE study - 1 views

  • engaging in digital media activities together such as watching films, playing video games and keeping in touch via calls and messaging apps brings families together rather than dividing them
  • rather than displacing established ways of interacting, playing and communicating – digital media sit alongside them
  • the report’s authors highlighted parents’ concerns about “screen time”, which is a source of conflict in homes, though sleep and behaviour cause more disagreement. They also flag up a lack of support for parents who may face particular challenges regarding their child or family’s digital media use. Whereas on other issues they might turn to their own parents for advice, the digital generation gap means they are unlikely to be able to help
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  • traditional, shared activities persist in families, alongside newer digital activities
  • Rather than worrying about the overall amount of screen time children get, it might be better to support parents, many of whom are digital natives themselves, in deciding whether, when and why particular digital activities help or harm their child, and what to do about it
Sean McHugh

Screen Time? How about Creativity Time? - Mitchel Resnick - Medium - 1 views

  • Too often, designers of educational materials and activities simply add a thin layer of technology and gaming over antiquated curriculum and pedagogy
    • Sean McHugh
       
      I think because the designers of these apps are not educators and are therefore assuming that they often traditional education they experienced is the norm or at the very least is still a desirable outcome for the kids that they are designing their Apps for.
  • 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.
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  • For kids growing up today, laptops and mobile phones aren’t high-tech tools — they’re everyday tools, just like crayons and watercolors.
  • Of course there’s a problem if children spend all their time interacting with screens — just as there would be a problem if they spent all their time playing the violin or reading books or playing sports. Spending all your time on any one thing is problematic. But the most important issue with screen time is not quantity but quality. There are many ways of interacting with screens; it doesn’t make sense to treat them all the same
  • Rather than trying to minimize screen time, I think parents and teachers should try to maximize creative time. The focus shouldn’t be on which technologies children are using, but rather what children are doing with them
Sean McHugh

Common Sense Media Census Measures Plugged-In Parents | Common Sense Media - 1 views

  • Everybody knows tweens and teens rack up lots of screen time. But what about parents?
  • the report reveals the tension between what we do and what we want our kids to do
  • when parents are aware of their kids' online activities, they're less likely to worry
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  • On any given day, parents of American tweens and teens average more than nine hours with screen media each day. Eighty-two percent of that time (almost eight hours) is devoted to personal screen media activities such as watching TV, social networking, and video gaming, with the rest used for work
  • The sheer amount of media and tech in our lives makes it tough to monitor and manage our own use -- let alone our kids'.
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    On any given day, parents of American tweens and teens average more than nine hours with screen media each day. Eighty-two percent of that time (almost eight hours) is devoted to personal screen media activities such as watching TV, social networking, and video gaming, with the rest used for work
Keri-Lee Beasley

It's time we talked - 1 views

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    Comprehensive resource for parents, schools and young people alike, about pornography.
Sean McHugh

The Scientific Case For Teaching Cursive Handwriting to Your Kids Is Weaker Than You Think - 2 views

  • 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.
    • Sean McHugh
       
      But should we be dedicating swathes of curriculum time towards this? Surely not.
  • what teachers “know” about how children learn is sometimes more a product of the culture in which they’re immersed than a result of research and data.
    • Sean McHugh
       
      Never were truer words written.
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  • What does research say on these issues? It has consistently failed to find any real advantage of cursive over other forms of handwriting
  • our real understanding of how children respond to different writing styles is surprisingly patchy and woefully inadequate
  • Evidence supports teaching both formats of handwriting and then letting each student choose which works best for him or her
    • Sean McHugh
       
      Shouldn't we include touch typing here as well?
  • So was cursive faster than manuscript? No, it was slower. But fastest of all was a personalized mixture of cursive and manuscript developed spontaneously by pupils around the fourth to fifth grade
  • They had apparently imbibed manuscript style from their reading experience (it more closely resembles print), even without being taught it explicitly
  • While pupils writing in cursive were slower on average, their handwriting was also typically more legible than that of pupils taught only manuscript. But the mixed style allowed for greater speed with barely any deficit in legibility.
  • The grip that cursive has on teaching is sustained by folklore and prejudice
  • freeing up cognitive resources that are otherwise devoted to the challenge of simply making the more elaborate cursive forms on paper will leave children more articulate and accurate in what they write
    • Sean McHugh
       
      Likewise if they can touch-type instead of wrestling with ascenders and descenders...
  • for typical children, there’s some reason to think manuscript has advantages
  • the difference in appearance between cursive and manuscript could inhibit the acquisition of reading skills, making it harder for children to transfer skills between learning to read and learning to write because they simply don’t see cursive in books.
  • There’s good evidence, both behavioral and neurological, that a “haptic” (touch-related) sense of letter shapes can aid early reading skills, indicating a cognitive interaction between motor production and visual recognition of letters. That’s one reason, incidentally, why it’s valuable to train children to write by hand at all, not just to use a keyboard.
  • even if being taught both styles might have some advantages, it’s not clear that those cognitive resources and classroom hours couldn’t be better deployed in other ways.
    • Sean McHugh
       
      In other ways... the time it takes for kids to learn cursive, spread over years, compared to the relatively short time it takes to master touch-typing being a case in point.
  • that cursive is still taught primarily because of parental demand and tradition, rather than because there is any scientific basis for its superiority in learning
  • inertia and preconceptions seem to distort perception and policy at the expense of the scientific evidence
  • How much else in education is determined by what’s “right,” rather than what’s supported by evidence?
  • Beliefs about cursive are something of a hydra: You cut off one head, and another sprouts. These beliefs propagate through both the popular and the scientific literature, in a strange mixture of uncritical reporting and outright invention, which depends on myths often impossible to track to a reliable source.
  • the reasons to reject cursive handwriting as a formal part of the curriculum far outweigh the reasons to keep it.
  • This must surely lead us to wonder how much else in education is determined by a belief in what is “right,” unsupported by evidence.
  • it’s often the case that the very lack of hard, objective evidence about an issue, especially in the social sciences, encourages a reliance on dogma instead
  • There needs to be wider examination of the extent to which evidence informs education. Do we heed it enough? Or is what children learn determined more by precedent and cultural or institutional norms?
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    There needs to be wider examination of the extent to which evidence informs education. Do we heed it enough? Or is what children learn determined more by precedent and cultural or institutional norms?
David Caleb

How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off - The New York Times - 0 views

  • 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,
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  • The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule.
  • “Emphasis was placed on the development of one’s own ethical code.”
  • parents didn’t dream of raising superstar kids. They weren’t drill sergeants or slave drivers. They responded to the intrinsic motivation of their children. When their children showed interest and enthusiasm in a skill, the parents supported them.
  • A majority of the tennis stars remembered one thing about their first coaches: They made tennis enjoyable.
  • Research reveals that the more we practice, the more we become entrenched — trapped in familiar ways of thinking.
  • what motivates people to practice a skill for thousands of hours? The most reliable answer is passion — discovered through natural curiosity or nurtured through early enjoyable experiences with an activity or many activities.
  • In fashion, the most original collections come from directors who spend the most time working abroad.
  • winning a Nobel Prize is less about being a single-minded genius and more about being interested in many things.
  • Relative to typical scientists, Nobel Prize winners are 22 times more likely to perform as actors, dancers or magicians; 12 times more likely to write poetry, plays or novels; seven times more likely to dabble in arts and crafts; and twice as likely to play an instrument or compose music.
  • “Love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said.
  • You can’t program a child to become creative. Try to engineer a certain kind of success, and the best you’ll get is an ambitious robot.
  • If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours.
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    "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." Gifted kids don't often produce something new but excel in the 
Keri-Lee Beasley

How to Provide Kids With Screen Time That Supports Learning | MindShift | KQED News - 0 views

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    Nice balanced article on young kids and screen time.
Jeffrey Plaman

Why Parents Shouldn't Feel Guilt About Their Kids' Screen Time - The Atlantic - 3 views

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    "Parents: Reject Technology Shame The advantages of helping kids learn to navigate the digital world, rather than shielding them from it"
Keri-Lee Beasley

Beyond 'turn it off': How to advise families on media use - 0 views

  • scientific research and policy statements lag behind the pace of digital innovation
  • The 2011 AAP policy statement Media Use by Children Younger Than Two Years was drafted prior to the first generation iPad and explosion of apps aimed at young children.
  • Media is just another environment. Children do the same things they have always done, only virtually
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  • In a world where “screen time” is becoming simply “time,” our policies must evolve or become obsolete.
  • Role modeling is critical. Limit your own media use
  • The more media engender live interactions, the more educational value they may hold
  • The quality of content is more important than the platform or time spent with media. Prioritize how your child spends his time rather than just setting a timer
  • An interactive product requires more than “pushing and swiping” to teach
  • Play a video game with your kids
  • co-viewing is essential
  • Tech use, like all other activities, should have reasonable limits
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    In a world where "screen time" is becoming simply "time," our policies must evolve or become obsolete. 
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    New look at screentime from American Association of Paediatrics - finally.
Keri-Lee Beasley

Apps that limit my child's time on the iPad. - samluce.com - 0 views

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    Helpful apps for managing time on devices.
Keri-Lee Beasley

A Difference: You, Your Kids, and Your Phones - 1 views

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    Digital Citizenship isn't an expression often heard outside of school. The ways in which it's discussed in main stream media are quite different from how it's discussed in schools. Most often the popular press shares sensational negative stories how kids use the internet and their phones to hurt each other. We have to have open and honest conversations about how things can and have gone wrong and what we can do to make things better in the aftermath of things like cyber bullying, online harassment, or sexting. That said, it's a far more powerful message to talk to kids and parents about how engendering empathy helps us understand each other so we choose not to hurt each other. It's also important to share stories and ideas how our modern mobile technologies empower us to effect positive change in the world around us in ways that weren't possible 10 or 15 years ago. We have to move beyond stranger danger and scare tactics. Sharing frightening stories (often overstated) does nothing to model positive outcomes or move the conversation to discussions of how to deal with something gone wrong. Kids need more models of empathy and empowerment. Parents do too.
Keri-Lee Beasley

Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games | Psychology Today - 2 views

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    If you are a parent who has been limiting your child's computer play because of the claims you have read of harmful effects, the research summarized here and in my previous posts on video gaming might give you pause.  The bulk of the research suggests that the claims about negative effects of video gaming are largely myths and the positive effects are real.  As children know in their bones, the kinds of mental skills that video games help to develop are among the skills that are increasingly important in today's world.
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