iPads, Radiation & Airplane Mode

From time to time articles or videos appear with alarming headlines that connect mobile devices with harmful effects on children. It is of course completely understandable that parents become concerned when they see these things. The College places the safety and well being of our students above all other considerations and we monitor official advice around all aspects of safety that affect our students. Most recently, a video has been circulating among our parents about the possible harmful effects of radiation from mobile devices like iPads.

When looking at any health or safety issue we need to make careful decisions about where we gather our data from. In this day and age it is an easy process for an individual to present a specific viewpoint and to easily spread that message via the Internet. We also need to bear in mind that there are reasons for people and organisations to do this other than a genuine concern for public welfare. An article with a dramatic headline or video with lurid claims, attracts traffic and that traffic can generate revenue from advertising for example.

As an example of how individual sources can easily contradict each other, consider this Forbes article and this article from Wired Science, which both offer a strong counterpoint to the video mentioned previously.

The underlying issue here is, given that individual representations or newspaper articles are not necessarily reliable or often contradictory, where does the College look for direction?

Two places:

• Large bodies of collated research, generally called meta-analyses
• Expert advice from leading health authorities such as Ministries of Health and the World Health Organisation

We are not aware of any large body of research that shows a causal link between mobile device usage and radiation that result in any negative impact on people’s health. Furthermore there is currently no advice from any world health body that we are aware of that advises that children be protected from such radiation emitted by wireless devices such as iPads.

We take this issue seriously and monitor the medical advice from recognised institutions around this issue. The welfare of the children in our care is paramount to us and we will respond appropriately in the event that the advice from the leading health authorities changes at any point.

As a college we understand why parents might have concerns about the potential negative effects of using mobile devices after watching videos like the one linked above. A parent's concern for their children's welfare is of course understandable, but please rest assured that we take this issue seriously and monitor the medical advice from recognised institutions around this issue. The welfare of the children in our care is paramount to us and we will respond appropriately in the event that the advice from the leading health authorities changes at any point.


Here are some further points that may be helpful in setting the overall context:

Screen time

The actual percentage of the school day our students use these devices is relatively small. A common misconception is that the provision of a device per child increased the amount of time our children spend using a device, but that is not why we have 1:1 devices. We use 1:1 devices so it is easier to manage student content, and so students don't accidentally delete the work of other students, for more about this please see this post.

Students certainly never use the devices in close proximity to their heads, which is one basis of the research that makes claims about damaging radiation from mobile devices, nor do our iPads contain mobile SIMs that generate GSM frequencies.

Airplane Mode

Having the College iPads in Airplane mode is not practical. We rely on wireless connectivity to manage and monitor these devices, as well as to share children's learning with parents via platforms like Seesaw. This will also have a minimal impact on the overall amount of waves in the air, given the large number of services being beamed around the island to support mobile phones, wireless, television, etc.


Ben Morgan & Seán McHugh

Learning Journals

Connecting Pedagogy with Digital Technology

At UWCSEA Dover Campus we are in our second year of adopting a TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) model based on the exclusive use of tablets, specifically iPads as the primary form of digital technology use in our early years grades. These mobile, multi touch screens have profoundly changed the way our youngest children interact with images, sounds, and ideas (Buckleitner, 2011). We are building a team of digitally literate educators who are grounded in child development theory and developmentally appropriate practices, and who are now becoming more and more proficient in their selection and use of digital tools and interactive media. Media that suit the ages and developmental levels of the children in their care, and, most importantly, that know when and how to integrate technology into the planned and taught curriculum effectively.

As the transformative impact of these technologies began to make themselves felt within the classrooms through the Infant School, it became more and more apparent that these technologies are uniquely suited to reshape the way they as educators share the work they do with their children’s families. The ease with which these mobile devices enable children to save, document, revisit, and share their real-life experiences through images, stories, and sounds, meant embracing a screen based medium as opposed to traditional paper portfolios. The screen allows us to capture these young learners in the modes that are most natural to them, their talk, their activity, alive with interactivity and multimodality, a far cry from the static nature of traditional paper portfolios that are virtually synonymous with early years education. When we made the shift to a digital format we changed the name, as the term 'Portfolio' implied product over process, best work over, well, work. What we really want to see is the 'journey' of learning, yes the final 'product', but arguably more importantly, the process of learning that the student/teacher captures.

[Digital] Learning Journals

Traditional portfolios tend to focus on the latest and best, but this creates what might be termed a ‘performance portfolio’, which supports summative assessment well, but tends to obscure the ‘learning journey’ (WiIliam, 2011). For an incremental view of ability, a learning journal is far more useful. When better work is done, it is added to the portfolio rather than replacing earlier work to allow students, teachers and parents to reflect on review the learning journey of the student. By looking back at earlier samples of their work, they can see what has developed, which has two immediate benefits. The first is that by seeing what has improved and thus identifying the trajectory of development, the student is likely to be able to see how further improvement might be possible. The second is that by focusing on improvement, the student and the parents are more likely to see their child’s ability as incremental rather than fixed (Dweck, 2006).

By leveraging the affordances of digital technologies, students can start developing such learning journals at a very young age. The integration of these digital tools allows these learning journals to be situated online helping educators make and strengthen home–school connections. With technology becoming more prevalent as a means of sharing information and communicating with one another, early childhood educators have an opportunity to build stronger relationships with parents and enhance family engagement. Early childhood educators always have had a responsibility to support parents and families by sharing knowledge about child development and learning. Digital tools offer new opportunities for educators to build relationships, maintain ongoing communication, and exchange information and share online resources with parents and families. Likewise, parents and families can use technology to ask questions, seek advice, share information about their child, and feel more engaged in the program and their child's experiences there (NAEYC, 2012).

Digital devices are now commonplace in homes and offer new and affordable ways for busy family members to communicate, connect to the Internet, and access information and social media tools to stay in touch with their families and their child's teachers and caregivers. These digital learning journals can support the ways educators measure and record development, document growth, plan activities, and share information with parents, families, and communities. The unique affordances of digital learning journals means they not only include photographs but audio and video recordings as well, to document, archive, and share a child's accomplishments and developmental progression with families in face-to-face conferences or through social media. Sending regular updates through social media or email helps families feel more connected to their children and their activities away from home. Most educators understand the value of writing down or recording notes that a child may want to give to parents. Using email, or other communication tools demonstrates the same concept about communication and helps to build digital literacy skills at the same time.

Digital Learning Journals model effective use of technology and interactive media for parent communication and family engagement and also creates opportunities to help parents themselves become better informed, empowering them to make responsible choices about technology use and screen time at home. This engages them as in a partnership with their child’s teachers, meaning that parents can extend classroom learning activities into the home, and encourages co-viewing, co-participation, and joint media engagement between parents and their children (Stevens & Penuel 2010; Takeuchi 2011).

For more details, with examples and a breakdown of our set up please visit this post at http://bit.ly/uwckindy

References

Buckleitner W (2011). “Setting Up a Multi-Touch Preschool.” Children’s Technology Review 19 (3): 5–9. www.childrenssoftware.com/pdf/g3.pdf

Dweck C (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House LLC.

NAEYC Statement (2012). A joint position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College. http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PS_technology_WEB2.pdf

Wiliam D (2011). Embedded formative assessment.

Stop-motion Storytelling in Kindergarten

One of our Tech Mentors in K2, Zöe Brittain, added a transformational element to her preparations for this year Arts Festival, by inspiring her students to create short stopmotion stories, retelling the story of The Ugly Duckling.



All of our iPad grades, which includes Infant School classrooms and Grade 2 all received a 'Justand' iPad stand this year, these are ideal for stop-motion, as Zöe's kid's so ably demonstrated.

As is usually the case with these powerful applications of ICT, the 'value added' is remarkable, but the outstanding aspect for me is the way this activity really focuses on collaboration—seeing 2 or 3 kids all communicating and collaborating, and trouble shooting in unison really is marvellous to behold, another excellent example of the UWCSEA profile, made visible.

Digital Leaders in the Modern Classroom.

I remember when I was a primary school student and the buzz that surrounded the arrival of a computer to our small village school. It think it was an Acorn BBC Model, which at the time was a big deal in the UK. I remember the thrill and excitement in the school community about this new, intriguing and somewhat alien arrival. The individual classes got the computer for one week a term and what a week it was! It was indeed a brave new world in education.

A cartoon from 1986.

However, by high school, the image of the "computer geek" had been born and most students at my school didn't choose to do "Computer Studies" nor were they encouraged to do so. Indeed there were more students in my Latin class than there were in CS. Most of us were beginning to get technology in our homes (my first computer was the magnificent Toshiba T1000) but this and my academic life were distinct and separate. Computers were eventually part of university life of course, whether it was Word for the work and Doom for the play but even then, my knowledge of this area was solely for my own use. Only recently have I been sharing what I know (and often admitting what I don't) with my peers and students as a tech mentor and I have been wondering what I could have learned and shared before now.

In the past few months I have read numerous blogs and articles about "Digital Leaders" being appointed in schools. These are students that can offer insight into what they think is important in their digital learning. They give advice to teachers, discover the new things that we as educators do not possibly have the time to do and are committed to peer to peer mentoring in the classroom.

http://wibsey.primaryblogger.co.uk/digital-leaders/

In short, not only are they being chosen for their love and interest of all things technological but they are being celebrated for this. One school has even started this in the infant school. The teacher created a blog asking children if they would like to be a Digital Leader. The response was overwhelming, even from the younger children. One child simply stated that they want to be a digital leader because "I like helping people. I like meetings. I like computers." (Note the order!)

http://www.digitalleadernetwork.co.uk/?p=757

Scouring the web, we can find a remarkable amount of blogs and references to students in similar positions in schools. They are proud of their role, committed to becoming part of something innovative and exciting and happy to be an active participant in their own learning.