teaching digital kids – Page 6 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

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. Continue reading “Screen Free Week — for Schools, Churches, and Families” →

I’ve just finished up a digital citizenship unit with my students, covering privacy, digital footprints, digital communication and the lack of human cues, and a bit about how easy it is for a person to cyber-bully using sarcasm, criticism, and flippant comments. It’s a lot to cover in a month, but we manage quite well.

After we complete the classroom activities, and most of these are collaborative smaller projects, the children complete a final poster project. I expect the poster to communicate as much information as possible on one of the topics. The posters are not digital creations because we hang them in a school hallway — a digital citizenship exhibition — for a month in the winter.

I am always amazed at the way these posters demonstrate how much my students have learned. Some children focus on the artwork, while others are more text oriented. Still others use a computer, clip art, or a presentation tool, combining components to make their posters. Continue reading “Assessing Students but Not With Grades” →