Chapter 9 - Chelsea

What are kids learning from technology?

With the emerging of new technologies, parents and teachers should notice how children learn outside of school and the home. They need to recognize how much can be learned from the emerging technologies. The technology literacy gap begins at home.  Parents do not understand how their children are using the internet, TV, and video games. Most parents claim that video games seem violent and may corrupt their children. Parents also add that while playing the games, children are missing out on physical exercise. What the parents do not see is the problem solving skills and communication skills their children are developing because it is beyond the experience of many parents. Parents should also want to get involved. They should pick up a controller and let the child explain how to play, the moral behind the game, and show strategies of how to beat the game.

Chapter 9 also encourages parents to let their children sign up to online communities. The communities would consist of other children with similar interests to theirs. Research skills and an extended pursuit of their interests can come from these communities which may benefit them in the future. They would be able to share their passions with like-minded children which would encourage them to learn about their passion much more deeply than they can on their own. The online communities allow children to see a variety children other than children in their same neighborhood or town. The chapter discusses an online community called MUVE which allows children to construct places using text descriptions and drawing programs. I like the idea of MUVE, but as long as there is parental supervision. I am not a fan of letting younger children use the internet. I myself was not allowed until I was much older. The internet has just become a dangerous place. But MUVE is beneficial regardless of my thoughts about it.

How has technology changed kids’ social lives and learning?

The convergence of peer and popular culture through technologies is the largest threat on schools and parents. Entertainment technology influenced the development of pop culture which made adolescents embrace these new technologies and reinforce peer cultures. Television has allowed for viewers to create blogs about what happened during a show or movie and the peers can discuss it. Video games allow players to solve complex problems and strategize. Blogging is definitely beneficial in the entertainment industry.

Chapter 10
Rethinking Education in a Technological World

The synopsis for education has evolved over the years.   In the past the perception of one’s success depended on the amount of education they have acquired, but recently there has been a shift in the success dependency on education.  Today many people are receiving the education, but many other factors are now affecting the rule of success.   Today the equality for top education to learners suffers for many reasons and therefore the success factor for many individuals may lack.   What kind of technical strategies can be implemented so that education is accessible to everyone in the society, regardless of their economical status?  How can the have and the have-not’s obtain the same amount of education to help foster each one’s success?  These are very important questions that need an answer worldwide.

At one time, the children relied solely on the teachers for information, but now technology has made knowledge available outside of the one source volume, the teacher.  Although we each received the beginning of education in a traditional classroom setting, we can now enter the broad scope of learning with different technology.  Rethinking education has liberated us globally to become a storehouse of knowledge without being bound to the traditional classroom.  For example, social networking can also filter learning styles, but at the same time we have to bring the older generation up to speed of new ways of learning.  It’s easier for a fifth grader to use computers, laptops, Ipads, and tablets, because this is there era of technology, its now introduced in the schools.  However, the older generation must now learn how to operate this new technology.  Rethinking education now includes the older generation as well as the younger generation.

What foster’s our children to learn will also maximize their motivation to learn.  How do we motivate our children to learn the basics of education such as: math, reading, and English seeing there are so many distractions, we call them.  Incorporating video games to teach these basics can be a catalyst to the learning process.  

 The world must rethink education, how we learn, and how it will influence our career, and how we will transition for learning to work, and what kind of leader will we become in the future.  The education of our children is no longer left to the parent but the government has played a major role in children receiving adequate education.  The No Child Left Behind was developed to ensure that children received “equality” of education.  “Parents, citizens, teachers, school leaders, and technology leaders needs to collaborate on how to bridge the gap in creating new opportunities to learn.

Amelia Mosley