The Hidden Premise In my role as a digital literacy coach, I often hear similar questions. One of those questions is, “How much screen time should my child have?” This is the wrong question to ask. Did you catch the negative hidden premise within the question? The hidden premise is that screen time is bad….
Category: parents
Parenting in the Digital Age – When I Was a Kid…
Life was so much simpler when I was a kid. I used to wake up on a Saturday morning and after having a quick breakfast, I would be left to my own devices. The weekend was ahead of me and there were so many possibilities. Sure there was homework to be done, but that could…
Dealing with Digital Distractions
UWCSEA East has been requiring students in grades 6 and above to have laptops for learning since 2011. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about how students learn with technology, and we continue to push our pedagogical practices to ensure that technology is leveraged in the best ways possible to enhance student learning. We also…
Reducing Distractions on Digital Devices
Distractions are as old as time. Think back to high school when perhaps you were doodling on a pencil case or passing notes to friends. What is different is that the very tools that allow us to access such wonderful learning and communication opportunities, can also have the power to distract us. In the presentation…
Parenting in the Digital Age – The Conversation Continues
Being the first group of people to parent the iPad generation certainly is an adventure. On the one hand, we are amazed by their capabilities to navigate between applications, create movies, build websites and FaceTime their grandparents. On the other hand, we may feel anxious about buzzwords like ‘screentime’, ‘game-addiction’, ‘distractions’ and ‘cyber bullying.’ Keep…
A Beginner’s Guide to Google Apps for Education
At a recent parent forum, we had requests for a workshop on Google Apps, so parents can understand what their child is doing at school and support them at home. We focused on Google Docs, Google Drive and GMail. You can see a summary of what we spoke about in the presentation below. We used the…
A Response to Recent News Articles on the OECD Report “Students, Computers and Learning: Making The Connection”
Many people have seen news articles about a new report from the OECD in recent days. A typical article and headline is this one from the BBC – “Computers ‘do not improve’ pupil results, says OECD” This headline is followed by the opening line: “Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve…
Parenting in the Digital Age
As parents, we all want what is best for our children. Kids are growing up in a digital age that is much different than the one we grew up in. Many parents are coming to grips with how they approach digital technology usage in their home. There are many approaches and every family and situation…
Learning to Manage Distractions
One of parents’ biggest concerns around student use of technology is that of distractions. The same tool we use to create and learn, can be used to entertain and derail productivity. So what are our options, as teachers? As parents? We could create elaborate structures of control (blocking certain websites, turning off wifi etc), but that…
Growing Up Digital: Resources for Families
We recently hosted another edition of our annual Growing Up Digital night for grade 6 families and grade 7 and 8 families new to UWCSEA East. The evening’s primary purpose is to provide space and time to begin the important conversations between Middle School students and their parents around how and when digital technology is…