Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, 21st Century teaching, advertising, civics, civility, credibility, digital devices, digital health and wellness, digital kids, digital life, ethical behavior, information credibility, media and family life, parents and technology, social media, teaching digital kids

Civility Is Now Devalued — So What Will Adults Do About It?

Posted on August 4, 2016May 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

dry-cracked-earth-texture-408x544 — Image from http://www.public-domain-image.com.

If there is ever a time to emphasize ideas on civility, commenting, fact-checking, and media literacy, it’s during an election. Children, preadolescents, and teens will learn much during the 2016 presidential campaign just from all the watching. (Read my post The Children are Watching and Seeing, Listening and Hearing.)

Our traditional expectations for civility and ethical behavior are cracking apart right before our eyes.

On the basis of what’s happened at recent political conventions and the beginning of the election season, young people will be witnessing name-calling, stereotyping, hateful comments, online hate, and in some cases veiled bodily threats. Kids will hear things on TV at home and on the televisions that are broadcasting in lounges, waiting rooms, doctor’s offices, and everywhere else. They will hear radios broadcasting the news at home and in other peoples’ homes. And, of course, there’s social media.

Continue reading “Civility Is Now Devalued — So What Will Adults Do About It?” →

digital devices, digital devices and gadgets, parents and technology

My Itty-Bitty Bluetooth Speaker — Best Summer 2016 Travel Device

Posted on August 1, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

One of the most difficult decisions before leaving home at any time of year is deciding what digital devices to bring along on the trip. My laptop or just the iPad? My iPad and my iPhone? My digital camera or just my iPhone? Then there are all the chargers and the surge protector with extra USB ports that I now bring along.

This summer I discovered one more digital device that I cannot live without when we travel — a tiny JAM bluetooth speaker that has big sound and darn good quality. About the same size as the small plastic drinking glass that I bring along when I am not in hotels and weighing not much more, this speaker connects with my laptop or iPad or iPhone (doesn’t matter which devices I decide to bring or not bring).

Continue reading “My Itty-Bitty Bluetooth Speaker — Best Summer 2016 Travel Device” →

parents and technology

The Children are Watching and Seeing, Listening and and Hearing

Posted on July 26, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

This post, uploaded during the fall 2012 presidential campaign, speaks volumes about what children see, hear, and absorb, and it quotes, perhaps my favorite education authors, Ted and Nancy Sizer. While their book was written for teachers, it is just as apt for parents, grandparents, and others who are concerned about children.

Already in the 2016 campaign, kids are hearing, picking-up, and at times using the uncivil, and sometimes uncouth comments made in the media. We adults need to do all we can to ensure that children have a way to unplug. We must also plan to spend a considerable amount of time talking with them about what’s happening and why rudeness, disrespect, and cruelty are not options.

Media! Tech! Parenting!

They watch us all the time. The students, that is. They listen to us sometimes. They learn from all that watching and listening.

–Theodore and Nancy Faust Sizer, The Students are Watching, 1999, Beacon Press

The Sizers wrote about classrooms and schools, explaining that students learn from what their teachers do and say and also from the things their teachers do not do or say. The authors illustrated their points in many ways, demonstrating how much our students learn from the things we do not do.

I read the Sizer’s book in the later 1990s with my growing child at home, so it was easy to see how the lessons applied not just to teachers but also to everyday family life. The message — that children learn from what we don’t do and don’t say…

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coding history, digital change, digital citizenship minute, parents and technology, programming, women in computer science

Why Did It Take So Long to Get More Women in Computer Sciences?

Posted on July 24, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

This podcast from National Public Radio’s Planet Money explains how women were early programmers and why their numbers dropped off as the digital age progressed. The podcast was originally broadcast in 2014, but I just discovered it when it was rebroadcast. Also, check out the graph that goes with the program.

Women in programming and computer science are ongoing topics of interest on this blog.

Continue reading “Why Did It Take So Long to Get More Women in Computer Sciences?” →

21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital devices, digital devices and gadgets, digital life, parents and technology, smartphones, teamwork

The Right Age for a Smartphone? Interesting NY Times Article

Posted on July 23, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

os7iphone-2 Take a few minutes to read What’s the Right Age for a Child to Get a Smartphone? by Brian X Chen. The July 20, 2016 New York Times article includes interviews with Internet Safety experts and contains some advice from other parents.

The Take-aways? (Well, we know most of this, but reminders are always useful.) Continue reading “The Right Age for a Smartphone? Interesting NY Times Article” →

21st Century life, design and problem solving, maker movement, makerspaces, parents and technology

Innovation & Coding — Fine Tuning the Mission

Posted on July 18, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Screen Shot 2016-07-17 at 2.32.11 PM — Created at http://www.tagxedo.com.

How can we ensure that young people, who enthusiastically embrace innovation, creating, and coding, also associate their work with the fundamental concepts of empathy, humility, and conscience?

As we adults thrill to help children learn, imagine, ideate, explore, and make things, we also need to define a compelling mission for each of our innovation and maker spaces — a mission that emphasizes the significant values that young people should apply to the problems they identify and try to solve. An innovation mission provides a foundation for children, illuminating important issues and providing benchmarks that help them to consider and choose problems. It should also help young learners differentiate between the significant problems that need to be solved from those that are insignificant.

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21st Century Learning, 21st Century vocabulary words, credibility, educating digital natives, parents and technology

Building Habits of Credibility into the Curriculum & the Conversation

Posted on July 4, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

21st Century Vocabulary Words - Credibility — 21st Century Vocabulary Words – Credibility

How do we help children identify and understand information that is not credible?

Election seasons provide some of the best opportunities to teach 21st Century young people about credibility — in school, at home, online and off. As we go about electing new leaders, we see and hear candidates stating all sorts of claims, assertions, rumors, and postulations. Some are true, others slightly true, some absurdly false, but all come via various media, social and otherwise, though not always online.

Use the months before an election to encourage young people, and your child especially, to think about credibility. Focus on the ways that the media share information and on how to discover whether facts are true or not true. Continue reading “Building Habits of Credibility into the Curriculum & the Conversation” →