The content of this week’s reading assignment was extremely informative,
but one small section in particular caught my attention. In Chapter 3 under the section “Identity and
Self-Concept,” I found the content of the section titled “Identity and
Technology” interesting and worth investigating further. In the eight years since this book was initially
published, I imagine the use of technology by children has increased exponentially,
and I think it’d be worth investigating more recent studies that examine the
impact of technology on their development.
Woolfolk describes “tethered” children whose technology
results in a failure to develop autonomy in real-life settings. In the classroom, I see technology affecting students’
motivation to learn. For example, when I introduced a
map reading lesson earlier in the school year, students resisted and complained
that it was a waste of time because GPS will always tell them how to get to a location.
I offered many practical reasons why
map-reading skills are still important despite the technologically-advanced world
in which they are inheriting, but they still argued with me. I have 10-year old students in my class who
can’t tell time and who don’t know how to read or write cursive let alone their
classmates printing. They argue these are not important skills because they
own a digital clock and they have can simply record vocal messages on their
phones or text in shorthand instead of handwriting them. They complain when I interject impromptu lessons about the short hand vs. the long hand on the clock on the wall and they bristle at the thought of writing slowly and neatly, or even writing at all.
Regardless of their relevancy of their arguments about GPS,
digital clocks or the simplicity of texting, the problem I have with their arguments
is the fact that they’re arguments at all. I believe technology is making kids
lazy.
Thoughts?
Rebecca I couldn't agree more!!! What you wrote here jumped out at me and I yelled YES!! "I have 10-year old students in my class who can’t tell time and who don’t know how to read or write cursive let alone their classmates printing. They argue these are not important skills because they own a digital clock and they have can simply record vocal messages on their phones or text in shorthand instead of handwriting them."
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more that technology has a side effect of laziness! Amen!
Rebecca I couldn't agree more!!! What you wrote here jumped out at me and I yelled YES!! "I have 10-year old students in my class who can’t tell time and who don’t know how to read or write cursive let alone their classmates printing. They argue these are not important skills because they own a digital clock and they have can simply record vocal messages on their phones or text in shorthand instead of handwriting them."
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more that technology has a side effect of laziness! Amen!
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteThank you for always offering our class some first hand examples of your classroom. Your work always encourages the "why" and in a way us AEDU students are learning from your actually elementary classroom. This focus on technology and laziness always races through my head and is the child right? Are things like cursive writing and analog clocks obsolete? In years to come are we going to laugh at that we hammered these concepts in our student's heads when we could be focusing our instruction on new concepts such as Google and other technological resources? For example, prior generations to me viewed typewriters as the end-all-be-all to writing and journaling but if you gave me one right now, I wouldn't even know where to start.
Good points, Joe.
DeleteWhen you think about the big picture, it is sort of counter-productive to battle with today's students about learning things like cursive writing and reading analog clocks when in their lifetime these very well could become obsolete. In the short-term, however, when we only have analog clocks throughout our school, and day after day, all day long, students glance at the clock on the wall and then ask me, "What time is it?" I'm going to push my clock-reading agenda. :) And, when parents or the office staff write messages to students in cursive, and fourth graders who learned how to read in kindergarten continue to need me to interpret it, I will also push my cursive agenda, too. :)