Posted on 11/18/2012 4:50:47 PM PST by mdittmar
A new study released on Thursday finds teachers are concerned that the amount and types of electronic media that children interact with at home may be harming their performance in the classroom.
Common Sense Media, a think tank focused on children’s media use, polled 685 public and private elementary and high school classroom teachers on how children’s increasing use of television, video games, texting, social networking, music and other forms of media is affecting their performance in school.
The study found that 71% of teachers polled said students’ media use hurts their attention spans in school, while 59% said students’ use of entertainment media has also harmed their ability to communicate face to face. A slightly smaller amount, 58%, said they believe it’s had a negative impact on their writing skills, according to the study conducted by Knowledge Networks May 5-17.
Nearly half of the teachers surveyed also said their students’ use of media at home is hurting the quality of their homework. “Many teachers think students spend so much time with media that they neglect their homework and aren’t prepared in class,” according to the report, which noted that children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend more than seven-and-a-half hours a day using media for fun.
Elementary school teachers pointed to video games, television, and computer games as causing the most problems for their students, while teachers said middle and high school students are more negatively impacted by texting and social networking. Two-thirds of teachers also said they believe that entertainment media has a “very” or “somewhat” negative impact on students’ sexualization.
Still, teachers did point to some benefits from students’ increased use of entertainment media at home with 63% saying it has helped students find information more quickly and efficiently, while a minority, 34%, said they believe it has improved students’ ability to multitask.
“We know that our children learn from the media they consume. This survey is yet another reminder of how critical it is to consistently guide our kids to make good media choices and balance the amount of time they spend with any media and all of their other activities,” Common Sense Media founder and CEO James Steyer said in a statement.
I guess I am in the middle here. I like being able to carry around a library in a tablet; but there is also something to be said for Dead Tree books. There is a whole other experience to reading missing from e-books. The texture of the paper, the typeface, the solid weight of the book, the binding, the tactile feel of turning a page; all of these things add to the art of reading.
It isn’t a budget issue, it’s the application. Kids see computers, iPads, iPhones, iPods and the like as toys, NOT learning tools.
In addition, I will be quite surprised to see what the maintenance costs on these devices will be. Unless the kids, themselves have to pay for it, it’s just another free toy and they will be neither careful nor respectful of the instrument.
I’ve been their age and I have been a teacher. I know how these devices will be treated and I think it is worse than a bad idea to try to use them as an educational tool.
Using the iPad to take notes is fine. That’s not the issue. The issue is schools using them as educational tools to replace textbooks.
Kids know these items as toys for playing games, accessing the Internet, email, Facebok, Twitter and the like. The mindset is already there and trying to convert that mindset to use the device as an educational tool wil be an uphil climb.
In the long run, I think it is a diservice to the kids and serves as a distraction from the learning environment.
I understand what you are saying and do agree with you about districts using them as a replacement for textbooks. Nor should they be provided by the schools.
Where I disagree with you is what I perceive as a broadbrush condemnation that all kids see them only as toys/entertainment. Today’s kids have been exposed to them in a learning environment for nearly as long as they’ve been in school, even when they don’t have access in the home.
This will be a good case study.
I’ve got connections at both schools.
Will report back in a year.
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/marion_county/chatard-cathedral-embrace-ipads
Well, I have taught school as well as being a technical trainer and have seen what is coming out of public indoctrination. It’s not good.
As a technical trainer, we had to turn off Internet access in the classroom to keep our customers’ (students) minds in the classroom and not surfing. Even with that, they would get on the computers in the classroom and play solitaire. So, I think I know a little whereof I speak.
This is a bad trend that defocuses on learning and gives the kids a toy to play with. I’ve seen it before and had to deal with it.
And the impact can last a lifetime. At my 30 year class reunion I shared a conversation with 3 people from elementary school. I had not seen them in 30 years. We were all in the same 6th grade class in the late sixties. We all unanimously agreed that our teacher, Mr. Farley was the best teacher any of us had ever had. Not even a close call. We all vividly remembered his class room and what an extraordinary teacher and human being he was. Tough but strong. Honestly, he taught us things like the gold standard and the stock market. Things that I know to this day. God Bless him, but the very sad part is that I also learned he had passed away when he was only 59.
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