Digital Citizenship

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Be a Mentor for Digital Citizenship

Parents and teachers are no doubt working hard to educate children about safe practices with technology, but being a good digital citizen is often more about following the behavior modeled by the adults around you. How can parents be good digital mentors? Devorah Heitner, digital citizenship expert, lays out a set of principles in what she calls the Mentorship Manifesto.

 

Here’s a condensed version:

  • Mentors start from a place of empathy as a path to trust and open communication.

  • Mentors understand that social interactions are more complex now, and that kids need help in building good personal relationships.

  • Mentors recognize that tech savvy is not the same as wisdom. Life experience is a critical factor in the equation.

  • Mentors believe in collaboration over control. Co-creating solutions with kids takes advantage of their creativity and builds trust.

  • Mentors are ready to be accountable. Recognizing and correcting bad technology habits serves as a model for kids.

Be a Mentor for Digital Citizenship

Parents and teachers are no doubt working hard to educate children about safe practices with technology, but being a good digital citizen is often more about following the behavior modeled by the adults around you. How can parents be good digital mentors? Devorah Heitner, digital citizenship expert, lays out a set of principles in what she calls the Mentorship Manifesto.

 

Here’s a condensed version:

  • Mentors start from a place of empathy as a path to trust and open communication.

  • Mentors understand that social interactions are more complex now, and that kids need help in building good personal relationships.

  • Mentors recognize that tech savvy is not the same as wisdom. Life experience is a critical factor in the equation.

  • Mentors believe in collaboration over control. Co-creating solutions with kids takes advantage of their creativity and builds trust.

  • Mentors are ready to be accountable. Recognizing and correcting bad technology habits serves as a model for kids.

Kids and Typing

Students are learning to type at a younger age than ever before. Lori D'Andrea, a computer-technology teacher in Connecticut, has written the article The Gendered Past of Typing Education, explaining her approach to typing instruction with her kindergarten, first- and second-grade students. She points out that young children face some physical barriers to learning how to type, but also stresses that typing is an important skill to learn as so much of the testing they will face will be on computers, starting at a very early age.

Parents Ask for More Resources for Dealing with Tech

A recent survey of over 700 families by children's television network Sprout has found most parents believe that technology has a positive influence on their children, although many also said they could use resources to help guide their children's daily tech use. The survey also found that there is a common feeling of “tech shaming” among parents, with 59 percent saying they feel judged by other parents over their kids’ screen time.

Sprout is also premiering a new original series, “Dot,” based on the children’s book by author Randi Zuckerberg (a sister of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook). The animated series aims to help teach digital citizenship and responsible tech usage. The show’s title character is an inquisitive, exuberant, tech-savvy 8-year-old who embarks on adventures to satisfy her imagination and curiosity. Also in conjunction with the premiere of the series, Sprout is launching “The Do’s & Dots” YouTube series to teach kids best tech practices; and SproutTalksTech.com, which invites parents to take a survey to see how they compare to other parents in navigating their children’s use of technology.

AudioBooks for Struggling Readers (and Everyone Else)

Lots of articles have been appearing lately about the power of audiobooks for struggling readers, something that parents with a dyslexic child are probably well aware. The affirmation that listening to a book is a valid alternative is great news for parents of children who struggle with reading . KQED recently posted an article titled How Audiobooks Can Help Kids Who Struggle with Reading, going into some of the latest research on the topic and offering a list of some excellent audio books and podcasts for all ages.

New Screen-Time Guidelines For Young Children

The American Academy of Pediatrics has released updated recommendations when it comes to screen time guidelines for children, according to a recent article from Forbes. Until recently, the AAP stuck to their guidelines that were published in 2011, discouraging screen time for children younger than 2 years; a one-hour limit for children ages 2 to 5; and consistent screen-time restrictions for those ages 6 and older. They have now amended these guidelines to keep up with the times, with the report citing “In a world where ‘screen time’ is becoming simply ‘time,’ our policies must evolve or become obsolete. The public needs to know that the Academy’s advice is science-driven, not based merely on the precautionary principle.”  According to an article on NPR about managing kids’ media use, the AAP has also launched an online tool that allows parents to create their family's own media-use policy.

Helping Kids Learn to Read Deeply on Digital Devices

Children are doing more and more reading and assignments on digital devices, but day-to-day interactions with digital devices have instilled bad habits in many kids, including breaking away to text or check social media. These habits make it difficult for them to delve deeply into digital texts the way they would do with materials printed on paper. Teachers are developing methods to counteract these diversions and to teach students how to read for content and context. Interested in trying some of these methods with your own children? Check out Strategies to Help Students ‘Go Deep’ When Reading Digitally on the KQED news site.

Online College Applications – Blessing or Bust?

The use of the online “Common Application” and other similar strategies by colleges has created a flood of applications that can be difficult to manage. Many institutions are employing new tactics to identify and communicate with qualified, interested applicants, such as through social media and email, but critics say some approaches including early acceptance and "demonstrated interest" tend to favor students from wealthier families and put students from low-income families at a disadvantage.

Parent Advocacy Group Discusses Educational Technology Concerns

Advocacy group Parents Across America recently called on school districts and states to be "far more cautious, diligent, transparent, and accountable about their technology decisions," citing threats to children's health and well-being from rising screen time, increased testing and data collection, and what some view as misguided teaching strategies. While the group is not against the "appropriate" use of technology in schools, they "are speaking out for balanced, healthy classrooms for our children," said Laura Bowman, head of the group's Roanoke, Va. chapter, in a statement. "We strongly oppose the push to increase student screen time, replace teachers with packaged lessons delivered by digital devices, and continuously test students, data-mining the results."

 

Parents Across America, which got its start with the help of funding from the country's largest teacher's union, is explicit in its opposition to what the group describes as "corporate school reform." The growing push for more technology in the classroom will financially benefit corporations, but is based on limited research about educational effectiveness, PAA maintains. The group has consistently fought against excessive standardized testing, charter schools, the Common Core State Standards, and test-based teacher evaluation efforts, positioning itself as an opponent to many of the efforts pushed by the Obama administration and large philanthropies such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Election (and Beyond) Apps

With Election Day quickly approaching, take a look at the summaries of 11 political apps on the Netted site. The apps cited can give you more information about the election process, including how to make contributions (Spotfund), understanding what things are going to be on your ballot locally (BallotReady) and even giving you information on how to get an absentee ballot if you need it (TurboVote). (Democracy.io) is an app for getting hold of members of Congress and (4US) is one that will compare your opinions to the votes to those of your local Congressional Representatives. If election data is needed to complete a homework assignment, try RealClearPolitics or Greenhouse. PebbleGo Vote is an additional website, not mentioned on the list, offering free educational content about the 2016 election for students in kindergarten through second grade. Among the assets available for download are e-books, articles and lesson plans.

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