Archive for the ‘digital devices and gadgets’ Category
Posted by Marti Weston on May 23, 2012
In Google’s Eric Schmidt and the Curse of Constant Connection, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus reports on the Google executive’s commencement address at Boston University (BU). In her May 22, 2012 column Marcus describe how Schmidt made the case for a bit of balance — urging new graduates (even as they stayed connected during the graduation ceremony) to take an hour or so each day away from the digital devices that keep us so connected.
The full text of Schmidt’s speech is on the BU website, and it’s a good read for digital age parents who are seeking ways to schedule a bit more disconnected time with family and friends.
To learn more about the search for digital device moderation I recommend the book Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. Author William Powers explores how people who lead connected lives (he does) need to find the time for reflection and interaction away from screens. And he describes how his family want about setting some time to be together and disconnected.
Best Quote from Powers’ Book
If we’ve learned anything in the last decade about technology and human interaction, it’s that as screen time rises, direct human-to-human interaction falls off proportionally.
Posted in cell phones, digital devices and gadgets, family conversations, online communication, parents and technology, setting technology limits | Tagged: Boston University, connected world, digital devices, digital life, digital parenting, Eric Schmidt, Google, Ruth Marcus | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on May 11, 2012
Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just published new survey results finding that 74% of smartphone owners — that’s three-quarters — appear to be using location services on their phones.
This statistic is double what it was when Pew conducted a similar survey in May 2011. The increase in location services occurs despite privacy concerns about tracking and data collection. Check out the report to look at the data by age, gender, and ethnic group, depicted in a range of charts and graphs.
I am still minimizing or turning off the number of location services that I use on my phone. While some of us use more location services than others on our smartphones, it’s critical for parents to know how location services work and how to limit access on the phones that their children around each day. Many apps ask to turn on location services during the installation process.
Do you know about Foursquare ? If it’s on an adolescent’s cell phone a parent needs to learn about it. Find out more about location services by reading a post that I wrote about location services, Location, Location, Location – Services that Is.
Each adult needs to figure out how much privacy is necessary or desired in his or her digital life and also in the digital lives of children. People seeking one right answer won’t find it, however it’s best to take the time to understand the devices that family members carry and apps that they use.
Posted in apps, digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, parents and technology, privacy | Tagged: digital parenting, location services, Pew Internet, Pew Research Center, privacy, smartphones | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on April 6, 2012
The process of spell checking is a two-part endeavor, and it’s an important digital world lesson for everyone — kids and adults — to master.
Part one features the work of the computer or website, as the spell check program goes to work. But after the digital spell check process a bigger responsibility lies ahead.
Each time a person writes and rewrites, he or she must spell check the spell checker — an important 21st Century skill. And while a commitment to differentiated instruction requires teachers and parents to recognize that some writers will be better at this second step than others, all students need to understand that the digital editing process cannot identify every mistake.
This poem always makes the point effectively with my students. Use it as a great conversation piece (and also to review homonyms) — over 2012 Easter and Passover dinner tables or any other time.
And if you put the words of this poem into Google search, you’ll discover that there are many other versions.
Human Brain Not Yet Obsolete
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC:
Posted in 21st Century Learning, digital devices and gadgets, parents and technology, social networking, when kids make mistakes, when to give children email | Tagged: digital kids, digital parenting, editing, family conversations, spell check, spell checker, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Marti Weston on March 28, 2012
Our Oldest Telephone
We are trying to decide whether to give up our land telephone line.
In early February our telephone stopped working. This happens to our phone service from time to time, usually for a few days, always after several days of heavy rain. Each time we call the phone company and each time, a person comes out, tweaks the outside wires, and our phones work again.
Unless it rains a lot, the phones are just fine.
In December when the telephones went down, a repair person from phone company came out, tweaked the line, and once again it started working, but this time they said the problem was in the wiring in side our house. We ignored this since the phones were working
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital devices and gadgets, electronic communication, land lines, parents and technology | Tagged: land line, landline, phone service, telephones | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on March 24, 2012
I’ve just finished re-reading The Price of Privilege, a 2008 book by Madeline Levine. Last week at a professional development event at my school, I heard Dr. Levine speak, while taking nearly three pages of notes and recalling some of the parenting strategies my husband and I used when our daughter, now out of graduate school, was in middle and high school.
Almost every concern that Dr. Levine raised — perfectionism, discontent, and insecurity — is familiar after years of parenting and teaching. I especially like her descriptions of effective parenting. Most importantly, when I read her book four years ago and reread it again last week, I thought about sleep and how much of a priority it needs to be for parents and children.
After the lecture my husband and I thought back to our daughter’s middle and high school years, considering all of the things we did well or could have done better. In the process we remembered the emphasis our family placed on getting enough sleep and eliminating computer screens each evening — sometimes to our daughter’s chagrin.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in cell phones, digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, gadgets and sleep, parents and technology, teens and technology | Tagged: adolescents, bedrooms, digital kids, digital parenting, gadgets, Madeline Levine, Price of Privilege, sleep deprivation | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on March 8, 2012
The ComScore DataMine site features this graph depicting the growth of iPad ownership across income categories in the United States. Read the notes that accompany the graph at the ComScore site. And this is before the iPad III goes on sale.
Last week at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) conference, I attended quite a few iPad in education events. Here’s a January 2012 New York Times article, Math that Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad.
Also check out the March 5, 2012 New York Times piece, As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline of PCs. Also check Anne Collier’s post iPads Apps as Kid Currency over at NetFamily News.
Posted in digital devices and gadgets, digital learning, iPhones and iPads, online learning, parents and technology | Tagged: digital devices, digital kids, digital parenting, gadgets, ipads, mobile phones, NetFamilyNew.org | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on February 12, 2012
I’ve just finished re-reading The Price of Privilege, a 2008 book by Madeline Levine. Last week at a professional development event at my school, I heard Dr. Levine speak, while taking nearly three pages of notes and recalling some of the parenting strategies my husband and I used when our daughter, now out of graduate school, was in middle and high school.
Almost every concern that Dr. Levine raised — perfectionism, discontent, and insecurity — is familiar after years of parenting and teaching. I especially like her descriptions of effective parenting. Most importantly, when I read her book four years ago and reread it again last week, I thought about sleep and how much of a priority it needs to be for parents and children.
After the lecture my husband and I thought back to our daughter’s middle and high school years, considering all of the things we did well or could have done better. In the process we remembered the emphasis our family placed on getting enough sleep and eliminating computer screens each evening — sometimes to our daughter’s chagrin. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in cell phones, digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, gadgets and sleep, good books to read, parents and technology, risky behavior | Tagged: bedrooms, gadgets, Madeline Levine, parenting, Price of Privilege, sleep, strategies | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on January 20, 2012
April 30 - May 6, 2012
Every year the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sponsors Screen Free Week.
The April 30-May 6, 2012 week-long activity, which for years was a turn-off-the-TV event, aims to encourage children and their families (and yes, adults with their digital devices), to be less dependent on activities in front of screens, encouraging all of us to consider other types of activities such as reading, playing outside, board games and exercise.
The point of Screen-Free Week is not to forget about digital activities, stop doing homework, and ignore the work that needs to be accomplished each day. Rather it’s a time to think carefully about the digital screen logjam in our lives and consider just how much time we are spending in front of TV, computers, iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, and other gadgets — and whether some of that time is better used for other things.
Just about everyone needs to come up with strategies to balance screen time activities with the rest of our lives, perhaps adding a bit more variation and creativity to our daily endeavors. But the week can also be a time to think about the quality of life. We should be asking ourselves, “How can we use our devices to learn and collaborate more, and are there ways they might help us grown into more productive citizens?”
The organization’s website describes the week as a celebration. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, family conversations, parents and technology, Screen-Free Week, setting technology limits, teaching digital kids | Tagged: Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, digital devices, digital parenting, family conversations, gadgets, screen free week, screen time, screen-free | Leave a Comment »
