Parenting in a Digital Age

Frame conversations around three approaches to media: 

control: media bias (base your control on facts not myths), experts, parental controls, software, etc

negotiate - ratings, time, balance… role modelling these

affect = mood, disposition, violence, ‘addiction’ 

Don’t panic!

“In 1922, 6,000 radios were owned by the American public; this number grew to 1.5 million by 1923, 17 million by 1932, and 44 million by 1940 (Dennis, 1998). In 1936, about nine in 10 New York households owned a household radio, and children in these homes spent between 1 and 3 hr a day listening to these devices (Dennis, 1998). This rapid rise in popularity sparked concerns.

A New York Times piece considered whether listening to the radio too much would harm children and lead to illnesses because the body needed “repose” and could not “be kept up at the jazz rate forever” (Ferrari, as cited in Dennis, 1998). Concerns voiced by the Director of the Child Study Association of America noted how radio was worse than any media that came before because “no locks will keep this intruder out, nor can parents shift their children away from it” (Gruenberg, 1935).

In recent decades, concerns about the effects of radio on young people have practically disappeared—but societal concerns about emergent technologies have definitely not done so.

Although previous parents' fears of radio addiction might seem amusing now, contemporary concerns about smart-phones, online games, and social media are shaping and influencing policy around the world.

The similarity between concerns about the radio and social media provides a striking reminder that in every decade, new technologies enter human lives and that in their wake there will arrive widespread concerns about their effects on the most vulnerable in society."

Orben, A. (2020). The Sisyphean cycle of technology panics. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1143-1157.

Screen time is just time 

> work/homework, reading, viewing, meeting/conversing, messaging, gaming

Four main categories of screen time.

1. Passive consumption: watching TV, reading, and listening to music 
2. Interactive consumption: playing games and browsing the Internet
3. Communication: video-chatting and using social media
4. Content creation: using devices to make digital art or music

(The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens] 

What if we swapped the phones for books? Why is that okay?

Beware media bias 

> Not all screens are the same: phone, tablet, e-reader, laptop, desktop, TV, game console

> Consumption v creation: one huge difference between devices is the capacity for creation/interaction, especially during holidays encouraging creative use, again model this... 

Practice what you preach 

Over 7 hours a day for parents... how does that compare to your children?

‘hours per day’ is not necessarily a helpful metric, but parents generally exceed child use by a rate of double to three times (9 hours v 3) 

Model appropriate use, eg at the dinner table, receiving messages during conversation, sleeping with your device, headphones in a social space, use before sleep... 

Device management 

• Children are not adults, less self control, so possibly more guidance needed 
• Beware of privacy, just because everyone can use their own screen doesn’t mean your child should, eg daily/regular family screen time. Maybe the family TV is a better solution? 
• Parental controls - sometimes necessary, but don’t rely on these long term
• avoid an adversarial solution that pits child against parents, responsible use is the goal
• be realistic about the amount of time you allow, and what that time is being used for:

Maybe apportion screen time in different ways? 

• Passive consumption: watching TV, reading, and listening to music 
• Interactive consumption: playing games and browsing the Internet
• Communication: video-chatting and using social media
• Creation: using devices to make digital art or music

Resources 

Screen time - Summary of Expert Advice 

Video Games & Violence

Device control and internet filters 

Creative Screen use at home

Creative Apps for iPads

Parental Video Gaming Advice Summarised 

Screen time Diigo reading list (>80 articles) 

Expert Advice

UNICEF

THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S CHILDREN (2017) 

p109

Assumptions about restricting screen time

"While parents and caregivers may think they are protecting their children by restricting the time spent on digital technology, this may not be the case.

Common measures to restrict internet use – by governments, businesses, parents and others – usually take the form of parental controls, content blocking and internet filters. While well meaning, these are not always well designed to achieve their desired purpose and may even create unintended negative effects. For example, such restrictions can cut adolescents, especially, off from their social circles, from access to information and from the relaxation and learning that come from play. Tension around these restrictions can also damage trust between parents and children. And extreme restrictions can hold children back from developing the digital literacy skills needed to critically evaluate information and communicate safely, responsibly and effectively through digital technology – skills they will need for their future.

Without consensus on screen time, it is important for parents, policymakers, researchers and the media not to jump to conclusions about what is healthy or unhealthy digital use. Considering the full context of a child's life – together with an emphasis on content and experiences rather than screen time – may prove more useful for understanding the effects of digital connectivity on children's well-being.

A common assumption is that time spent online will detract from other activities thought to be more valuable, such as face-to-face socializing, reading books or exercising. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘displacement theory' (discussed later in this chapter). While this assumption originally received support and served to inform policy statements, such as the former digital media guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), more recent evidence suggests it might be simplistic or even inaccurate. One reason for this shift is the growing recognition that digital technologies offer many opportunities for children to pursue developmentally valuable activities, and these opportunities are both increasing and improving. 

Recent research suggests that youth seem quite resilient to screen consumption at higher levels – up to six hours daily – more than is typically recommended by most policy statements."  (Peersman, Claudia, et al., 2016)

Screen Time: Not too little, not too much

"Despite concerns, mainly among parents and educators, regarding the effects of extensive screen time (see section: The debate over digital dependency), a recent large-scale cross-sectional study of more than 120,000 15-year-olds in the United Kingdom found that the time children spent using digital tech had only a negligible impact. This study, which controlled for gender, ethnicity and economic factors, included watching TV and movies, playing video games, using computers and using smartphones. The activities differed somewhat in their respective impacts, but the authors conclude that, in general, no use at all was associated with lower mental well-being, while moderate use (between approximately two and five hours per day, depending on the activity) seemed to have a small positive effect on mental well-being." (Przybylski and Weinstein)

p111

"...physical inactivity is unlikely to be a direct consequence of adolescents spending too much time on screen-based activities.

Some studies suggest that online activity and physical activity may be more independent of one another than they seem. 

children are not forgoing physical activity because they want to go online. Instead, they may be going online because they are already physically inactive, for a variety of reasons. (Melkevik) Or they may be less physically active, and also go online, as two separate outcomes... 

...interventions targeting screen time alone are unlikely to significantly increase time spent on physical activity." (Iannotti, Ronald J., et al. 2009)

Instead of asking “How does screen time affect physical activity?,” perhaps the right question is “Are children leading lives where they can get a healthy, balanced amount of activity for optimal growth and well-being?” Promoting physical activity and a healthy diet might prove a better strategy than merely reducing screen time. 

Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate

"Human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution."

"Maybe technology is not the problem. Maybe it’s just down to human behaviour. Consider again the parents of young children who worry about screen time but put their toddlers in front of an iPad for hours on end and then blame the technology. Consider the fact that teenagers have been locking themselves up in their rooms, avoiding talking to their parents and responding only with barely audible grunts to ‘how was school today?’ for, probably, centuries. Screens didn’t cause any of this. From this perspective, the mere existence of screens contributes to this problem in the same way that cars contribute to crashes. That’s right, car crashes wouldn’t happen if there weren’t any cars, but it is the person in control behind the wheel who causes them, not the car.

Not all screen time is equal – Shooting Azimuths

Fear mongering 

From time to time, doom laden missives like this get circulated amongst parents:

10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12 

We need to stop talking about the notion of screen time. All screens are not equal. A TV is different from a computer, and they are both different from a touchscreen tablet. Putting all of them in the same category is dishonest and simplistic. Screens are merely a way of visualising experiences of a wide variety of categories. They are bearers of media—they are not media in themselves. Thus, they cannot categorically be defined as good, bad or neutral. For instance, no reasonable person would say that all computers are bad in the workplace. There may be good or bad uses of a computer, but the computer itself is neither. It’s just there—as an instrument, or a bearer of media.

Secondly, there is a big difference between watching something and interacting with it. The interactive component changes everything when it comes to creating new experiences for kids. Being engaged and actively participating in something—with feedback, collaboration, imagination and creativity—is a completely different experience from viewing a passive narrative. There can be a time and a place for both, but they are by no means the same thing.

iPads – A Tool, Not Alchemy, for Education

Screen time in the Early Years...

In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its policy on very young children and media. In 1999, the group had discouraged television viewing for children younger than 2, citing research on brain development that showed this age group’s critical need for “direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers.” The updated report began by acknowledging that things had changed significantly since then. In 2006, 90 percent of parents said that their children younger than 2 consumed some form of electronic media. Nonetheless, the group took largely the same approach it did in 1999, uniformly discouraging passive media use, on any type of screen, for these kids. (For older children, the academy noted, “high-quality programs” could have “educational benefits.”) The 2011 report mentioned “smart cell phone” and “new screen” technologies, but did not address interactive apps. Nor did it broach the possibility that has likely occurred to those 90 percent of American parents, queasy though they might be: that some good might come from those little swiping fingers.

The Touch-Screen Generation

American Academy of Pediatrics Guidance (AAP)

"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

Media is just another environment. Children do the same things they have always done, only virtually. Like any environment, media can have positive and negative effects.

Content matters. The quality of content is more important than the platform or time spent with media. Prioritize how your child spends his time rather than just setting a timer."

• Beyond ‘turn it off’: How to advise families on media use 
• Focus On An Issue 
• AAP Announces New Recommendations for Children’s Media Use
  

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH)

"The evidence base for a direct ‘toxic’ effect of screen time is contested, and the evidence of harm is often overstated. The majority of the literature that does exist looks only at television screen time.

Evidence is weak for a threshold to guide children and parents to the appropriate level of screen time, and we are unable to recommend a cut-off for children's screen time overall.

Many of the apparent connections between screen time and adverse effects may be mediated by lost opportunities for positive activities (socialising, exercise, sleep) that are displaced by screen time.

There is a little evidence that any specific intervention can be applied across the population to reduce screen time. We have developed four key questions for families to use as a guide to examine their screen time:

• Is screen time in your household controlled?
• Does screen use interfere with what your family wants to do?
• Does screen use interfere with sleep?
• Are you able to control snacking during screen time?

If a family can ask themselves (or be asked by others) these questions, and are satisfied with the answers, then they can be reassured that they are likely to be doing as well as they can with this tricky issue.

Not all screens are equal, and guidelines need to be updated to reflect these differences.

A family doctor’s rules for toddlers and screen time 

...healthy, age-appropriate use of media and technology, even with the youngest children, is possible.  It all depends on content and context."

Can Technology Be a Teaching Tool for Toddlers, Preschoolers? | Common Sense Education

Lumping all screens into one category is not helpful. "Screen time is a really enticing measure because it's simple – it's usually described as the number of hours a day using screen-based technology. But it's completely meaningless," says Pete Etchells at Bath Spa University, UK, who studies the effects of video games on behaviour. "It doesn't say anything about what you're using that time for.

Children benefit from the right sort of screen time

Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens

"The notion of screen time as a one-dimensional activity is changing. Computers, tablets, and smartphones are multipurpose devices that can be used for lots of purposes. Designating their use simply as "screen time" can miss some important variations. The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens identifies four main categories of screen time.

1. Passive consumption: watching TV, reading, and listening to music 
2. Interactive consumption: playing games and browsing the Internet
3. Communication: video-chatting and using social media
4. Content creation: using devices to make digital art or music

If screen media use can mean writing a short story on a computer, video-chatting with relatives, watching videos, reading the news online, or playing games, what is the point of documenting the total amount of time teens spend using screens?"

Page 23

"Computers, tablets, and smartphones are multipurpose devices that can be used for any of these activities; designating their use simply as “screen time” can miss some important variations. So, for the first time that we are aware of, this study quantifies the time spent using these devices for different functional purposes: what we call “passive consumption,” which includes watching TV or videos, reading, or listening to music (using the word “passive” is not meant to imply that the consumer is unengaged); “interactive consumption,” which includes playing games and browsing the Internet; “communication,” which includes video-chatting and using social media; and “content creation,” which includes writing or creating digital art or music."

Eye Problems?

Thankfully, studies conducted thus far haven’t attributed long-term vision problems to screen usage as a kid. Mark S. Borchert, MD, director of both the Eye Birth Defects and Eye Technology Institutes in The Vision Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, states, “Multiple large population-based epidemiologic studies suggest that screen time does not affect the predisposition for glasses. At least 90% of the risk for needing glasses is genetic.”

Mashable.com — How to protect your kids' eyes and ears from too much screen time

Let the kids have recreational screen time of at least an hour a day, why?

168 hours in a week (7 x 24)

- 64 (7 x 9 hours sleep)

7 x 24 = 168 hours a week 

- 7 x 10 (sleep) 70

- 5 x 9 (school week + travel) 45

- 5 x 2 (homework/tuition) 10

- 7 x 2 (meal times) 14 

= 140 hours 

168 - 140 = 28 hours of leisure time a week - not including holidays, 4 hours a day. 

If they played one hour a day, that still leaves 3 for playing outside, creating, reading and ...? 

Key Slides from the Parent Presentation

Sources

Melkevik, ‘Is Spending Time in Screen-Based Sedentary Behaviors Associated with Less Physical Activity'.

Iannotti, Ronald J., et al., ‘Patterns of Adolescent Physical Activity, Screen-Based Media Use, and Positive and Negative Health Indicators in the U.S. and Canada', Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 44, no. 5, May 2009, pp. 493–499.

Orben, A. (2020). The Sisyphean cycle of technology panics. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1143-1157.

Peersman, Claudia, et al., ‘iCOP: Live forensics to reveal previously unknown criminal media on P2P networks', Digital Investigation, vol. 18, September 2016, pp. 50–64.

Przybylski and Weinstein, ‘A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis', pp. 209–210.

 

Traffic Light Highlighting

 

Highlighting texts that we read is a commonplace strategy utilised by many people especially when working with more complex/academic texts that are generally more difficult to understand, and are often being read with a specific focus in mind usually one that will result in some sort of academic reflection in the form of a written report of some kind. Unfortunately the research on this is less than favourable to put it mildly.... specifically that highlighting as a strategy is extremely ineffective despite its popularity...

Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. (2013)

“Students already are familiar with and spontaneously adopt the technique of highlighting; the problem is that the way the technique is typically implemented is not effective.
...
Given students’ enthusiasm for highlighting and underlining (or perhaps over-enthusiasm, given that students do not always use the technique correctly), discovering fail-proof ways to ensure that this technique is used effectively might be easier than convincing students to abandon it entirely in favor of other techniques.” p21, Donesky et al (2013) 

This of course begs the question as to exactly what an effective technique for highlighting could look like, fortunately the authors of the study are happy to help (emphasis mine):

“Marked text draws the reader’s attention, but additional processing should be required if the reader has to decide which material is most important. Such decisions require the reader to think about the meaning of the text and how its different pieces relate to one another (i.e., organisational processing; Hunt & Worthen, 2006)
...
More generally, the quality of the highlighting is likely crucial to whether it helps students to learn, but unfortunately, many studies have not contained any measure of the amount or the appropriateness of students’ highlighting. Those studies that have examined the amount of marked text have found great variability in what students actually mark, with some students marking almost nothing and others marking almost everything.” (Ibid)

 

So the key here is “discrimination between important and trivial information” and to highlight as little as possible, as it’s the criticality of the selections that facilitate effective engagement with the text. An effective strategy will “improve student retention of knowledge as essential for reaching other instructional objectives; if one does not remember core ideas, facts, or concepts, applying them may prove difficult, if not impossible.” ... “the important interplay between memory for a concept on one hand and the ability to comprehend and apply it on the other.” (Ibid)

 

Experience

When I first encountered this research I was somewhat taken aback as this didn’t jibe with my own experience, anyone who knows me knows that I have a reputation for remembering what I read, and I read a great deal, particularly academic articles, but the reason I remember what I read it because I am an avid notetaker, but those notes are very much structured around a highlighting strategy.  But when I read into the research it is apparent that what I’m doing isn’t what they are criticising... The strategies are use when highlighting very much represent the types of efficacy outlined above, so please allow me to introduce to ... (drum roll please) Traffic Light Highlighting.

 

 

Traffic Light Highlighting

As you read, make critical selections of text using either yellow, green, or red highlighter. *

Green for content you strongly agree/resonate with, red for the opposite of that, and yellow for content which is interesting/useful/informative. 

 

In terms of engagement combining this highlighting with note taking is essential, this is particularly true of text highlighted in green or red.  

Stanford professor Candace Thille has some very helpful advice in this CNBC article,

“Just highlighting something doesn’t commit it better somehow to your memory.”

Instead of mindlessly underlining something you want to learn, Thille suggests finding important information and paraphrasing it in language that makes sense to you.

"If you thought that point was important, try and restate it in your own words," she says. "Try and make sense of out it because you're not really trying to commit it to memory, you're trying to extract meaning out of it."

So where there is green text I am summarising what it is about that text that I find to be so important. But it’s the red text that causes my students the most confusion—they just cannot understand why I would want to focus so closely on information that I don’t agree with; but as I explain to them, that kind of content is arguably the most useful, particularly when you’re expected to demonstrate critical thought about the text. 

For critical thinking it’s important to seek out information that is not in alignment with your current views, this is where the questions lie, where the opportunities for learning are the richest. At the very least it ensures that you’re not just constructing and maintaining your own 'filter bubble'. The red text assists with embracing uncertainty, seeking out the complexity of disparate perspectives.
 

Depending on the nature of the paper that you’re reading you should find that red highlights should be relatively rare—few and far between. The example I have included below is from a paper that I found to be particularly contentious, but as a general rule I would expect  many papers not have any red text at all and where there is red text, it’s probably only one or two sentences in the entire paper. Notes that accompany the red text will expand on what it is about this point that I find problematic.

Notice the notes.... that's engagement.

Green - Judgement: agreement  endorsement
Yellow - Factual/informative/interesting/noteworthy
Red - Judgement: disagreement/contention

Blue?

Some of my students have adapted this highlighting strategy for their own purposes, something I enthusiastically encourage. One student in particular uses blue text; they use this to highlight text which they personally find difficult to understand—primarily because of their lack of familiarity with the content. This is an interesting perspective, and one I think still lends itself to the kind of critical engagement that the experts encourages in order for a highlighting strategy to be truly useful. 

 

References

Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh, EJ, Nathan MJ, & Willingham DT. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. 

Hess A. (2017). These 5 hacks can help you learn anything, according to a Stanford professor. CNBC. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/5-hacks-to-help-you-learn-anything-from-a-stanford-professor.html

 

* I personally prefer to use a digital tool for this as it avoids printing  (especially for the paper I cited to support this post which was in excess of 50 pages), and affords me the range of colours I require, but also allows me to easily clarify the meaning of certain terms which especially with academic papers is quite common. An added bonus is that it’s also very easy to view a synopsis of all the content in the paper that has been highlighted or annotated at a glance, and the search function is particularly powerful when referring back to research that you may not have read recently and need to review.

Five Filters of Failure & a Scale of Scepticism

It's not the unrelenting torrent of information that I find troubling, after all, how many books are out there, never mind films and TV shows? How many articles, journals, newspapers, magazines? How many hard copies are holed up in folders, files, cabinets, archives and dusty basements all over the planet? Many I am sure, and yet no one ever complains about this sheer weight of data, I've never heard anyone complain,

"Dude, I just don't want read another book, there are just way too many out there, like, y'know? Like, if I read one a week for the rest of my life, I still wouldn't come even close, y'know?"

And yet, so often I hear this pointless observation made about the web, so yeah there's a lot of data, that's nothing new, the 'information revolution' proceeded the 'digital revolution' by at least a half a century—World Wide Web 1989, Libraries have been around for a lot longer... But even in 1945 library expansion was calculated to double in capacity every 16 years*, if sufficient space were made available... so there's been a lot of data for a long time; all we need to do is learn to deal with it. Literally.

So, the fire hydrant image below, while clever, I relate to more on the level of tech tool overload. Seriously, every gathering of tech types I ever attend is dominated by tech tool talk, new Web 2.0 tools, new gadgets, widgets, scripts, plugins, apps, features, software suite, usually accompanied by a lot of references to them being AWESOME.

Larry Cuban uses a list to help articulate this tension in his seminal publication 'Oversold and Underused' (2001) which reads as follows:

• Is the machine or software program simple enough for me to learn quickly?
• Is it versatile, that is, can it be used in more than one situation?
• Will the program motivate my students?
• Does the program contain skills that are connected to what I am expected to teach?
• Are the machine and software reliable?
• If the system breaks down, is there someone else who will fix it?
• Will the amount of time I have to invest in learning to use the system yield a comparable return in student learning? (p170)

Cuban L (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

So imagine my delight when I stumbled up on the most magnificent scepticism dial, or what I prefer to call... the Scale of Scepticism.

In order for me to assimilate a new digital tool to the point of actually recommending it to teachers to use with students, it has to have passed through my own series of stages, along the lines of:

Stage 1 – utter scepticism (yeah, whatever)

Stage 2 – cool reticence (arms folded)

Stage 3 – emerging realisation that, actually, this might be worth a closer look (sitting up)

Stage 4 – mild interest, even emerging (muted) enthusiasm (leaning forward)

Stage 5 – semi-excitement (standing up)

Stage 6 – fervoured, obsessive exploration (squeezing through to the front)

Stage 7 – passionate commitment and desire to talk to everyone about it, to the marked irritation of, well, everyone (evangelistic zeal)

The only problem is I needed something more succinct, more ... manageable, I could feel the threads of my sanity slipping, and I needed something simpler to accompany my next foray into techdom.

And thus emerged ... 5 Filters of Failure, now these were mainly conceived in the context of iOS devices, due to their increasing presence in my school, these have somewhat preoccupied my mind of late, but I do believe these 5 filters can be applied more generally:

1. Do this require me to do the same thing more than 5 times? Like tedious account creation for each student? Do kids have to sign in/create an account to use it?
2. Is it transformational? Yeah, it's cool, but does it radically change what I can do? Is it too similar to something I already use?
3. Does it have pedigree? Reputation. How long has it been around? Is it tried and tested? How are they making money? If it is 'free' then how likely is that is will be here in 4 weeks? 4 months? 4 years? Or even if it is, will it still be free (unlikely)? Often the pricing from free to paid (once they think you are committed) is ridiculous, ie from 0 to $10 USD per student. 
4. Is it well designed, simple to use? Can kids use this independently? Can Teachers work it out on their own? Is it intuitive?
5. Can the content be exported/shared easily? Can the App save to camera roll? Export to a universal format? Does it require web access to function, so if WiFi is sketchy the activity fails?

Dealing with the Deluge

This set of filters is essential in the management a phenomenal proliferation of digital tools. On, literally, a daily basis, more tools with funky and not so funky names emerge into a market place already filled to overflowing with a veritable cornucopia of competitors. If you're fortunate, your school hopefully already has a dedicated tech integrator to stand between the teacher and the tsunami wave of digital applications, utilities and all sorts of 'Apps' boasting their pixelated promises to 'save you time' etc.

And if you don't? Then by all means ignore these 'wonders of the web' until you do. Yes, sometimes lurking in the sludge of similarity (and revolutionary? not really...) is the odd golden nugget of greatness, but it's not going to terribly affect your teaching to miss out on those. If that is not an option for you, then arm yourself with these filters and, like the prospector who wades through the mediocre, seeking to route out all except the most worthy, you can then bring the odd truly terrific tool triumphantly back to your team. Not that they will be as excited about as you will be. Yet.

Now it doesn't have to fail all 5 filters to fail, but the more filters it fails, the less interest I have in taking it seriously, I can honestly say that all of the tools I rely on currently all pass at least 4 of the 5 filters. Will these filters change? Absolutely, I'm constantly reconsidering/tweaking/adjusting them—like the cornucopia of competing tools they are designed to filter they need to be flexible; after all there were four filters of failure only a year ago.

1. Setup requirements
2. Similarity
3. Reputation/pedigree/funding
4. Simplicity
5. Ease of Export 

These are my filters

There may be many like them, but these are mine.

The question is... What are yours?

 *Rider (1944). The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library. New York City: Hadham Press.

Spreadsheets & Mathematics ... in Grade 2?

Spreadsheets are the runt of the proverbial litter when it comes to the building of core digital competencies, or digital literacy. I guess it is assumed by many that somehow spreadsheets are too complex for primary school? Irrelevant? But I can assure you that this misconception is more about teacher perception based on inexperience, rather than reality.

The reality is that spreadsheets are arguably one of the most powerful digital tools in use in the world today, have been for some time and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Ask many parents which digital tools they are most reliant on in their world of paid work, and you're more likely to hear that it's a spreadsheet than a video editor, or word processor et cetera. 

This lesson used Google Sheets on iPads, to speed things up I prepared the sheet by changing the cells from rectangles in squares, and then used Hapara Teacher Dashboard to place a copy into each of the student's Maths folders in their respective Google Drives. The lesson was built around our benchmarks for Maths in this unit and proceeded as follows:

1. Open up your Google Drive, open your Maths folder, open the Sheet you see there...
2. Create some arrays and label then using the relevant multiplication using * instead of x (it's a computer thing) 
3. Practise cell references (randomly click a cell, have the class yell out the ref, ie F9)
4. Show the class how to use write a formula to multiply 2 cells, eg =G17*H17
5. Copy and paste the formula down the sheet; copy, select the cells, paste
6. Explore commutative properties (the green section in the image above) 
7. Now use the same formula to create a times table grid (blue above)
8. Try another time table! 

For tips on the basics of using spreadsheets in primary school, see this post. 

Holidays, Screen Time & Parental Guilt

Holidays are fabulous, and with them comes, especially for your children, time. In particular, more leisure time. And in a world where “screen time” is becoming simply “time,” for many—while we anticipate some great memories and experiences—with the typical 21st-century family it doesn't take long before the inevitable tensions caused by the multiplicity of screens in the home can start to cause problems. The fact is that a vacation inevitably means more time spent with screens, for the whole family, not just the kids.

Cue the inevitable pangs of parental guilt, brilliantly summed up in this article from The Atlantic:

"Tune into the conversation about kids and screen time, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that before the invention of the iPhone, parents spent every waking moment engaging their kids in deep conversation, undertaking creatively expressive arts-and-crafts projects, or growing their own vegetables in the backyard garden. There’s a tendency to portray time spent away from screens as idyllic, and time spent in front of them as something to panic about. 

But research shows that vilifying the devices’ place in family life may be misguided."

This post outlines practical ways to make screen time more productive. When screen media use can mean writing a short story on a computer, video-chatting with relatives, watching videos, reading the news online, or playing games, what is the point of documenting the total amount of time kids spend using screens? Instead of auditing, focus more on balance. The paltry amount of time our children spend active and creating (as opposed to passive viewing) with screens could be nudged up extensively by replicating at home some of the ways we encourage our students to use screens in school, only this time giving your kids much greater freedom of choice in terms of the focus of their creative endeavours...

Depending on where you will be spending your vacation, you may well find yourself in a situation where your children are stuck indoors for many hours. Obviously a long-haul flight means that kind of scenario and most families are prepared to tolerate a lot more screen time in that situation for the sake of maintaining sanity. But what happens when, at your destination, you are faced with, for example, inclement weather (yes my native Ireland, I'm looking at you). This means that potentially your children are stuck inside for days on end, and there's only so many hours you can spend persuading them to play board games and read books before screens and their many distractions become a temptation... Then when (not if) parents inevitably concede, it causes a great deal of guilt, not to mention potential condemnation from in-laws?

Screen Time - Not just a kid thing [Credit Paul Rogers]

How much is too much?

Common sense media have recently released the results of a huge census that they have taken, 'Media use by Tweens and Teens', researching typical uses of screen time. I've written about the issue of screen time before in the context of early childhood. But what make this census of particular interest is that it's focused on the screen time of older children. The findings are certainly worth reading, and for the most part they handle the issues it represents well, other than their tendency to grandstand with their "9 HOURS OF MEDIA DAILY" (which includes listening to music, something you could be doing while spending a week hiking in the mountains...) But my main gripe is their strange choice to exclude adults from the census—it's my contention (recently confirmed by another media census focusing on parents) that many if not most adults would rack up just as many hours as our children, if not more (especially if they're working on screens during the vacation, which many do). Given a comparison like that, it would put this kind of alarmist rhetoric into a much more reasonable perspective. For example, at least two recent studies show that the typical adult spends between eight and eleven hours on screens, although "to be fair, much of that probably happens while doing other things at the same time." (Statista)

"On any given day, parents of American tweens and teens average more than nine hours with screen media each day. Eighty-two percent of that time (almost eight hours) is devoted to personal screen media activities such as watching TV, social networking, and video gaming, with the rest used for work."  

The Common Sense Census: Plugged-In Parents of Tweens and Teens

As mentioned, the amount of "free time" available to everyone in the family during vacations increases, but you can be sure that especially for your children, with this significant increase, the likelihood is that your children will want to occupy most, if not all of this free time with "entertainment media". This was the focus of the census, and included media like books, not just screens, but as you will not be surprised to learn, screens dominated. A lot.

"entertainment media” is a very broad category, including everything from music, TV shows and videos, books, and websites to computer, video, and mobile games. But the fact that tweens and teens in the U.S. are using an average of six to nine hours' worth of media a day is still astounding. As discussed elsewhere, this does not mean they are stopping all other activity and attending only to media during this time; but it is still a large amount of time spent absorbing a large amount of content.
...
on any given day fully one in five 8- to 12-year-olds in this country is using more than six hours of screen media, and nearly as many teens (18 percent) are using more than 10 hours of screen media." (The Common Sense Census, 2015, p 30)

The survey provides little of anything in terms of advice as to how to manage this, although one particular statistic really stood out to me, and it is at the heart of my advice to parents in dealing with this tricky issue.

Media Use by Tweens and Tweens Report - Page 22

"Only 3% of teens' and tweens' digital media time is spent on content creation" 

Almost every vacation I get bombarded with emails parents and teachers desperately requesting ideas for ways that they can use screen time more productively during their vacation, so here is my advice if you want to try and make screen time more productive in your family this holiday.

Get creative

The notion of screen time as a one-dimensional activity is changing. Computers, tablets, and smartphones are multipurpose devices that can be used for, well, lots of purposes. Designating their use simply as "screen time" can miss some important variations. The Common Sense Census identifies four main categories of screen time.

• Passive consumption: watching TV, reading, and listening to music 
• Interactive consumption: playing games and browsing the Internet
• Communication: video-chatting and using social media
• ​Content creation: using devices to make digital art or music

21st Century Family Screen Time [image credit: pc.advisor.co.uk]

If your children are dual language learners (DLLs), this is an excellent way to encourage them to reinforce their language other than English (LOTE), by replicating some of their school projects in their mother tongue.

A model I use for framing our use of screens at UWCSEA is something I sum up as 'vitamin digital' of 'VITAD'; five domains of tech use. Even better, as your kids have been working within many (if not all) of these domains, they will already have a good idea of the kinds of tools they need to use, without you needing to teach them! Each of these domains is powerful in its own right, but they really come into their own when you start exploring combinations of them...

VITAD - Video, Image, Text, Audio and Data Handling - Core Domains of Tech

Video editing:

Make music videos, animation, stop motion video, 'supercuts' from YouTube clips. Why not appoint your kids as family 'media journalists', why not give them the job of documenting the holiday? I'm sure they'll let you contribute some of your media to the project...

Many of our students use this model for their iTime projects in the Junior School, see this post for lots of suggestions for holiday iTime projects that are fun for your kids, without being a headache for you to manage as a parent. Below are some examples:

Image creation:

Image montage/mash up, slideshow, add music to convert the slide show into a music video? Image editing, filters, layers, digital artwork... 

Text: 

Make an ebook, presentation, blog, choose your own adventure (hyperlinked Google Slides), coding, website, browse (research holiday destination?) persuade, demonstrate...

Learn to touch-type, for more advice on this see my related post, but it's safe to say that if you/your child dedicated 15-30 minutes a day to this everyday throughout the holidays they could be proficient by the start of the new school term in August! 

Audio: 

Slideshow commentary, soundtrack, podcast/radio show, composition in GarageBand, or remix of favourite tracks? 

Data handling: 

Spreadsheets: pocket money, trip budget, holiday costing, problem solving, graphing stats (choose data and gather ie how many times does 'x' do 'y'???

Maths:

Do not be mistaken, just because they are working with Maths activities on a screen, doesn't make the experience much more palatable for your kids. That said, there is no doubt that using screens to encourage greater numeracy is a no-brainer, these tools are brilliant at enabling practise, with immediate feedback, and developing 'automaticity'. Despite this, Maths practise will most likely need to be encouraged with tangible rewards for completion of certain achievements. I expect my kids to do a half an hour of Khan Academy before they do any other screen activity, half an hour a day during vacations is the goal. Maybe offer them rewards as they complete certain mile posts or missions? In order to keep vacation stress to a minimum, I find it a really good idea to ask them to go back and master grade missions that precede the grade they're in, as this is an effective form of revision/consolidation/practise, even if this means a Grade 5 student working on the Early Years mission to get started, if I did it, so can they! This way you're also less likely to be called on to help with problems that they can't solve independently, and they are more likely to enjoy the sense of fluency and confidence that comes with working speedily through concepts that they have practised in previous years, not to mention the reward of mastering a grade level. That said, both you and they might be surprised at how many foundational skills they are less confident in than they thought, just as well you did this then, isn't it?

... Better still, why not join them in a little Maths revision yourself? The Khan Academy App on the iPad is particularly good for this.

There are plenty of other options besides Khan Academy, especially if you don't have a reliable WiFi connection, these can be really useful. One of my favourites is the Ken Ken App, like Sodoku, but with basic operations thrown in. Also, pretty much anything from the developers behind Squeebles is a safe bet—there are many tried and tested Maths Apps, such as these, and these, that you can install on an iOS device near you, I'm sure many if not most of these are also available on Android.

Coding

Check out my coding posts on this blog and you'll see a complete guide of many kinds of apps and sites to fill any vacation... :)

Focus on the Meaning not the Medium

Now I'm not going to pretend that all these ways to use screens to create are going to trump the use of screens to consume, interact and communicate, any more than you have any intention of only using screens in your life for creating. For this reason you may need some incentives are going to have to be in the form of some essential agreements; with a bit of careful negotiation I'm sure you can work out some sort of compromise...

Finally, some wise words from the American Association of Pediatrics (updated October 2015):

"Media is just another environment. Children do the same things they have always done, only virtually. Like any environment, media can have positive and negative effects. 

Content matters. The quality of content is more important than the platform or time spent with media. Prioritize how your child spends his time rather than just setting a timer."

What about Video Games?

No doubt if you've got this far you're probably wondering, well this is all well and good, but even if I do persuade my child to do a little more creating, they are still going to want to devote way more time to playing video games than most parents are comfortable with. I'd advise you to look on the bright side, playing games like Minecraft and Roblox are arguably very creative—and even more traditional games like Mario Kart and Fortnite are clearly very socially interactive, or at the very least provide activities that require active engagement as opposed to the most common alternative of mindlessly staring at screens as the time wiles away at 35 frames per second (like many of us did, where we were their age). 

So, gaming can be a great from of screen time. If you're not convinced I've compiled a post here, answering the many questions I have received from parents over the years in relation to their children's playing of video games. At least give it a try, you might be surprised how removing one more thing to nag about can improve your relationship with your children!

Tech Tips for Translanguaging

We've been learning a great deal about Translanguaging, but what I'm particularly interested in is the transformative ways that tech can facilitate this, at home, at school, and in between. This post summarises some very effective tools to support translanguaging that are free, easy to use, and that work across a range of devices and platforms. 

At our school we use iPads and laptops, so the affordances differ depending on the device you use, so that's how I have structured this post: 

Google Translate for Translanguaging

Google Translate is the go to tool, and using this effectively is at the heart of effective translanguaging with tech, the effectiveness of this tool just gets better every year; the friendly face of the effective integration of artificial intelligence.  

Search using the home language

Using Google translate so that students can search Google in their home language and therefore get search results that are not translations but that are websites written in their home country by people who speak their home language. This can be tricky if you don't have a keyboard in your home language, or (for younger learners) don't know how to write in your home language, but you can speak it. Kids can type in a search term in English and have it translate into their home language, and then copy/paste that into a Google Search. Or speak the word in their home language and copy the text that appears to use for a search. For example a child researching dolphins: 

Now they can copy the search term, paste it into Google and search for Dolphins in Japanese, including videos: 

site:jp
site:kr
site:ru

... et cetera

Search sites in the home country 

Search Google using the operator site: so that students can find sources from their home country, like this: 

This has the added advantage of providing a perspective on the topic being searched that is more reflective of their home country, although if the browser/device is set to English then the results are likely to be sites from their home country that have been translated (by people not machines) into English. That said, as the site is based in their home country, there will often be an option to switch the site to their home language on the main menu. 

Last and definitely least: Translate

Machines are far inferior to humans when it comes to translation, particularly when it comes to passages of text, as opposed to words, and short sentences, but even a machine translation is better than nothing. Sometimes students will have no choice but to work with a text that is not in their home language, and Google Translate works for that, just bear in mind that it is far from ideal. On laptops in the Chrome Browser, the Google Chrome extension is really handy for translating pages with a click. On iPads this is not an option, but students can paste text into the Google Translate app instead... 

This is particularly useful for parents who need to translate school documentation that may not be available in their home language, then can translate with a click: 

Rewordify

Rewordify.com works on all devices and interestingly attempts to interpret or paraphrase rather than relying on a direct translation. This can make technical or complex English language more accessible, for example: 

Notice how less accessible, lower frequency words are expanded to make them easier to understand... 

iPads/iOS

Supporting home languages using iOS is very easy, just press and hold on the emoji icon, and choose Keyboard Settings. From there they can choose their home language, now they can switch keyboard very easily whenever they want to work in their home language. But what makes it very clever is that the dictation tool as smart enough to realise that when this keyboard is selected, you can dictate,  and search in that language as well. So a Google search can be typed or spoken in the home language without needing to use Google Translate at all. 

General Tips 

Narrate

Use screen recordings so that students can use their home language to narrate artefacts that are created in English. 

Home language browser

For older students (13 and up) they can set up an add a second, personal Google account that is in their home language including all menu commands so they can effectively switch between home language and English with a 4 finger swipe of the trackpad in Google Chrome, one browser in English, one in their home language. 

Home language search settings

Students can configuring the search commands in Google Chrome to operate in their home language instead of English, although this can make it difficult for teachers to support them with their search if they can't read the home language. From google.com in the bottom right corner, they can open up search settings > Languages > Choose their home language and save... 

Google Tools

Google Docs have several features that are not designed with translanguaging in mind, but that are really useful. For example being able to use the Explore and Define options to visualise/define key vocabulary. Not to mention the option to translate an entire Google Doc into their home language as a separate copy.... (Tools > Translate)

Stop Motion - G5 EXPO

Stop Motion - G5 EXPO

Inspired by various TEDtalks, a group of students in Grade 5 wanted to create their own animated talk to share their thoughts with 'G5 Expo of Learning' visitors.

They planned out their talk and decided on the visuals they would need before starting the project. Some students chose to draw on whiteboards while others used LEGO to tell their story.

We discussed the importance of finding a suitable space to work in, paying attention to lighting and shadows as well as comfort and safety. Using the area outside Margaret Chhoa’s classroom allowed all the students to fit in and work without disturbing each other. We began by setting up the Justands over the work area and got all of the equipment within arms reach.

We explored how the iMotion HD app worked and decided whether to use the manual or time-lapse capture option. Another interesting option is to use the microphone to listen for a clap or a sound from the user to take a picture. This, along with the time-lapse option, takes away the opportunity for movement of the iPad or for it to lose focus on the image below.

 

When the stop motion movies were complete the children exported them from the iPad via email. Once back on their laptops they imported the stop motion into iMovie to add finishing touches; an introduction slide, a voiceover and an end slide. The voiceovers really gave another dimension to the movie and they required the children to think carefully about how what they were saying supported the visuals on screen.

Many visitors to the G5 Expo of Learning were impressed by these videos and the children who produced them were proud of their work. From a teacher's point of view the children used a variety of skills and developed new ones through this project.

Enjoy the finished movies.