Technology is for some of us is an extension of who we are and essentially built into our very being, for others its unfathomable and alien, confusing and irrelevant. I'm listening to the new Guru in my life Jason Silva and his thoughts on technology and humans. I work in early childhood and see that technology and children are made for each other in way that has never happened before. The designers of new technology have studied how we engage with tools for so long that now we are at a stage where the machinery we are using is more attuned to how we engage, its intuitive, learning and reactive. We want and need to touch, talk, look and participate, its so powerful.
As we juggle with the speed and variations of how its presented, we are also confused about its use to children and the impact it will have on them and their future. The American Academy of Pediatrics (2009, 2010, 2011a,
2011b) and the White House Task Force on Childhood
Obesity (2010) cane out and said that they discouraged large amounts of viewing time of screen time and recommend no more than 2 hours per day. Later this year they will release another statement that we suggest that not all screen time is the same, and that we need to re-evaluate how children engage with technology and also what technology looks like.
Jason Silva talks about technology as our second skin. For young children who grow up a world where technology is creating new ways of connecting with the world and knowledge, it is becoming an essential. As educators and parents, our responsibility is not to limit the access, but critique the access so children have a framework on which to judge what is useful and what is not. Pokemon Go has won praise because has got people out into the neighbourhood and fresh air,l there are already lots of among apps that encourage kids to get outside and explore.
You would have also seen lots of discussion recently about STEM and education. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (and the Arts) is the buzz word around education and the 21st century. ur world is changing so rapidly that we need to teach and embed in young children the skills and codecs that they will need to support their learning into the future. We already know that PLAY is the most important part of any learning framework, through play you experiment and continue to seek new ways of doing things and allows you to also practice what you know. But we also need to provide opportunities for children to engage in different literacies such as coding so that it is a built in language that will underpin their learning into the future.
You would have also seen lots of discussion recently about STEM and education. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (and the Arts) is the buzz word around education and the 21st century. ur world is changing so rapidly that we need to teach and embed in young children the skills and codecs that they will need to support their learning into the future. We already know that PLAY is the most important part of any learning framework, through play you experiment and continue to seek new ways of doing things and allows you to also practice what you know. But we also need to provide opportunities for children to engage in different literacies such as coding so that it is a built in language that will underpin their learning into the future.
In the next few weeks an amazing new tool will be arriving in 6 early childhood playrooms across our community. He has no screen, and his role is to teach young children how to create code.
Our role as educators, is to give children the opportunity to transcend themselves with technology, and it s a natural for them, because they have no fear of getting it wrong, for them its opportunity, exploration, a window, a door, and a life beyond and not just in front of the screen
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