My wife retired from her position as a technology facilitator in the local school district a few years ago and now spends her time serving a similar function with faculty in the education college. Her gift is in suggesting ways in which educators can help students use technology to learn. She seems to have some database of ideas in her head cross referencing instructional approaches, content areas, and technology tools. Watching her work “live” is like watching a jazz musician – she seems to be able to accept a starting point from an educator and then she improvises multiple suggestions for activities and tools using core principles she promotes.
This afternoon she is speaking to the early elementary faculty. They asked that she schedule a couple of hours to present technology ideas for “the youngest learners”. There is a reason she owns multiple iPads (three I think). She really never has to start from scratch when it comes to this kind of request. I collect scholarly references. She collects software and one iPad simply does not have enough storage capacity. She starts listing the various things she could demonstrate and have the faculty members explore.
This is an interesting topic that I understand more as a grandparent than a researcher (see image above – there are the older, younger ones). It is somehow mind boggling to watch a child unable to talk to me demonstrate how to scroll through pictures on my phone searching for himself or people he recognizes. He cannot understand when I have something on the screen that will not scroll in response to his touch and he keeps trying to get the boring stuff to change.
My kids (not my grandkids) are very sensitive to the issue of “screen time”. It is one of those phrases I never used as a parent that my kids use all of the time. My wife and I discuss how we ever raised kids given our lack of insight into parenting practices. Our favorite parenting expression at present is “use your words” which seems to translate as “do not hit your brother, tell him you are upset”. The younger generation is evidently far more advanced than we were.
Anyway, once sensitized to the issue of tech devices and very young learners, I started seeing references to this age group everywhere. It may be tech and young children month or something. Here are some links I have noticed in the last couple of days:
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