You don’t need to be a Dickens scholar to understand that for many teachers it is both the best of times and the worst of times.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Digital innovation is inspiring imagination. Educators from all over the world are learning how to responsibly blend technology into their teaching, while sharing resource suggestions and best practices with colleagues and their growing professional learning networks.
The freedom to choose an assortment of apps, videos and open educational resources that can augment – if not replace – traditional curriculum for any given unit or lesson plan is empowering. Learning how other teachers put these tools into their own practice via Twitter Chats, EdCamps and other collaborative environments is exhilarating.
In 2016, Tristan Harris, whose job title at Google was “design ethicist,” left the company to focus on a new nonprofit he called Time Well Spent. The goal of Time Well Spent is to reverse what it calls “the digital attention crisis” — the brilliant minds at Google, Apple, Facebook, and elsewhere who “hijack our minds”…
Our digital lives may be making us more distracted, distant and drained, according to research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. For instance, even minor phone use during a meal with friends was enough to make the diners feel distracted and reduced their enjoyment of the experience, one study found. Source: Dealing…
Increased screen time has multiple risks for children’s psychosocial well-being. These risk factors seem to be significant in the long term, and are related to problems in children’s socio-emotional development later on. Health professionals and pediatricians have an important role as communicators of the current research results on the safe usage time of e-media for…
Although adults can beat children at most cognitive tasks, new research shows that children’s limitations can sometimes be their strength. In two studies, researchers found that adults were very good at remembering information they were told to focus on, and ignoring the rest. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds tended to pay attention to all the…
I am currently on the last day of my summer holiday and have started thinking about new technology I can use in the upcoming year. I have found 18 apps / websites that I am definitely going to try. Source: 18 must-try apps for the new academic year. – #EdTech4Beginners I need to check out…
YouTube is getting rid of its video editor and photo slideshows due to lack of use, the company announced yesterday. The changes won’t happen until September 20th, so if you still rely on YouTube to edit your videos, you’ll have a bit of time before you have to find a new service. Source: YouTube is getting rid of…
