It is unbelievable how kids today can manage computers, video games, eltronic toys, and even mp3 players. When I was a child I did not know what a computer was, my video game was the Atari (and that means one red button and one single joystick), and I would play with Barbies and board games. I used to listen my music on a cassete player...There were no cds, blue ray discs or even dvd!! The first computer I saw was huge, with the black background, green font and no games at all.
The kids today learn to use the computer when they are around 2 (two!!!) years old. They have all the educational games online. They can play games while learning.
Once they know how to read and learn they can have acess to an e-mail account, and Im's to communicate with their friends. In a way this is really good, once they can not only chat about their "personal" lives, but also share websites and links to their school works. They can pretty much have "the world" on the computer.
The technology is really advanced and it keeps changing every day...
The kids need to pick on that, or as a grown up they will be left out. Not only the kids need to improve their computer skills, but also the parents and the teachers. At home we need to be aware the kid are on safe websites and not giving any personal information to people they met online. And at school, teachers are using internet-based classes and assignments. And by acessing blogs, facebooks, etc, the teachers can get to know their students better and understand where they are coming from and learn about some kind of issues they may have..
Thank you for sharing your own personal experience.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about the research presented in this article? Do you think Greenhow's ideas should be fully embraced by teachers?