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Available in multiple languages this parent guide is a great resource for all ages

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Available in multiple languages this parent guide is a great resource for all ages

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National Association for Media Literacy Education

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Building Healthy Relationships with Media: A Parent's Guide to Media Literacy

NAMLE and our partner, Trend Micro created a parent's guide to assist families in starting media literacy conversations at home. We focus on one simple piece of advice: teach your kids to ask questions. With real-life examples of conversations that may come up at home, the guide provides parents with some simple ways to encourage critical thinking at home.
Download the guide in English here. Download the guide in Spanish here. Download the guide in Greek here.

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Building Healthy Relationships with Media: A Parent's Guide to Media Literacy NAMLE and our partner, Trend Micro created a parent's guide to assist families in starting media literacy conversations at home. We focus on one simple piece of advice: teach your kids to ask questions. With real-life examples of conversations that may come up at...

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This reflect's the afternoon working group' shareout to Hackathon challenge to design a program to support and train media mentors and Lisa Guernsey's wonderful closing remarks on the budding ecosystem we are developing as a community.

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Panel 2 in the afternoon-Jim Gray on the "Digital Lemonade Stand", Kara Flack on disability and unique voice and families in early intervention, Shimira Williams shared how families and children develop their authentic voice, build their brand and tell their true stories not what the news only reports, and Dr. Michael Rich challenges the terms "media literacy" and "media mentors"

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Faith Rogow

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After lunch: Faith Rogow and Panel 2: How Do We Empower Families to Tell Their Story?

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Essential Media Literacy Skills

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Welcome, @LittleMissFlint, and First Panel

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Chicago Children's Museum has written and adopted for use, a position technology within its visitor experience.

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Read Kristin's article, We Are Made for Story for ISTE Entrsekt Magazine

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For kindergarteners in Pennsylvania's Elizabeth Forward School District, grades have become a thing of the past. Instead, students earn badges, awarded for crossing academic milestones: reads sentences fluently, subtracts two-digital numbers. Imagine mastery-based grading, add colors, and you have our badging system.

Badges have long been used to designate achievements. Soldiers earn badges and medals on the field of battle; scouts earn badges to prove they've mastered different skills. And for this generation of digital natives, with their keen understanding of leveling up, badges also make sense.

Most schools, however, stick with what they know, reporting student progress with letter grades, numbers or percentages. The problem with this traditional reporting is that primary-aged students are not developmentally able to associate a letter or percentage grade with their performance, and so these scores tend to carry little meaning for them.

[Students] have something physical they can hold in their hand saying, 'I earned this.'

Realizing this, during the 2015-2016 school year, the Elizabeth Forward elementary teachers and administrative staff began to discuss the possibility of using micro-credentials and badging for their youngest students. A group of cross-district kindergarten teachers met with elementary principals to talk about the potential that badging could have. The teachers were immediately sold on the fact that students, who'd grown up with online games and trophies, would understand the concept of leveling up better than an A, B or C.

To start, practical skills, literacy and numeracy skills were identified and classified into 68 different badges. Each skill was then associated with content from our curriculum. The teachers decided to allow a great deal of flexibility for the assessment of each skill, so students would have the opportunity to demonstrate what they know differently. A graphic artist, who happened to be an Elizabeth Forward graduate, designed the badges, which were then printed, sorted and distributed, along with the other necessary supplies to start the journey.

The concept of badging was met with approval by teaching staff, administration, parents, and most importantly, the students. After introducing badging to parents and students at the 2016-2017 Kindergarten Kick-Off, students began to earn badges their first week of school-and they loved it.

Kindergarten parent Katie Ricardi has been one of many fans of the idea. "They have something physical they can hold in their hand saying, 'I earned this,'" she explains. Students can see their badges displayed on a large ring in the classroom, or they can see their accomplishments on the FreshGrade app, which allows parents to see what badges their children have earned and what they needed to do to earn it.

It's almost like a digital portfolio where the parents can go online and see what badges their children have earned.

"It's almost like a digital portfolio where the parents can go online and see what badges their children have earned," states kindergarten teacher Lindsay Murray. Parents Joe and Jessica Mull agree. "I think every parent has had the experience of trying to pull out from their child what school was like, what did they do. The app and notifications gives us a way to ask our daughter something very specific about what happened that day." Ricardi agrees that there is always something fun to talk about when her daughter gets home.

Kindergarten Badges - Elizabeth Forward School District from Matthew R. Day on Vimeo.

Joe Mull also says he likes that the school district is taking advantage of technology and trying new things. "We like to see [the district] pushing the boundaries of education doing different things that are compelling and progressive in the classroom," he says. And Superintendent Bart Rocco believes that Elizabeth Forward is pushing the learning of their leaders and teachers. "What that's going to do is to push the learning of our kids, and that's why we are here, to help kids learn." The district is hoping to continue the badging initiative with subsequent grades as they work to determine the specific needs of each level.

Jennifer Meliton, Mary Carole Perry, and Brad Simala are all principals in Pennsylvania's Elizabeth Forward School District, representing Greenock/Mt. Vernon Elementary Schools, Central Elementary School and William Penn Elementary School respectively. For more about innovations at the Elizabeth Forward School District, including their badging initiative, visit www.efsd.net.

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​Micro-Credentials for Micro-Students-Kindergarteners Swap Grades for Badges - EdSurge News

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For kindergarteners in Pennsylvania's Elizabeth Forward School District, grades have become a thing of the past. Instead, students earn badges, awarded for crossing academic milestones: reads sentences fluently, subtracts two-digital numbers. Imagine mastery-based grading, add colors, and you have our badging system. Badges have long been used to designate achievements.

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Technology in the lives of educators and early childhood programs: Trends in access, use, and professional development from 2012 to 2014.

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Embracing social media in teacher preparation programs.

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Virtual Mentors: Embracing Social Media in Teacher Preparation Programs | IGI Global

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Rogow slides NAMLE-Erikson pre-con MLE in ECE 2017

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English, Spanish, French

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EdTechTeam GAFE Tips Posters - Google Drive

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One of my favorite Ted Talks

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Where does OK Go come up with ideas like dancing in zero gravity, performing in ultra slow motion or constructing a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine for their music videos? In between live performances of "This Too Shall Pass" and "The One Moment," lead singer and director Damian Kulash takes us inside the band's creative process, showing us how to look for wonder and surprise.

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Responding To Resistance: Why We Should Mandate Media Literacy in Early Childhood Education

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Responding To Resistance: Why We Should Mandate Media Literacy in Early Childhood Education

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Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics grudgingly recognized the diversity of activities available using electronic screens and they have acknowledged that minimal screen time for toddlers and preschoolers might not ruin children for life and, in some cases, might even have some benefit. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that part of me wants to say, "I told you so"; I've been arguing for at least twenty years that, unless you are talking about very heavy users, what children do with screens is more important than counting the minutes they spend with the devices. If the content or activity is harmful, then the amount of acceptable screen time should be zero. But what if they are doing media literacy?

The thing is, you can't teach media literacy skills without allowing children to engage with media, including some electronic screens. If it were up to me, I'd mandate purposeful use of digital media as a requirement for credentialing, but I understand why many early childhood professionals resist.

Whether they are

getting push back from well-meaning (but ill-informed) parents,

limited by administrators who shun screens as if doing so earned their programs some sort of merit badge,

subject to evaluations using antiquated quality rating scales that designate screens as a waste of time, or

simply lack confidence in their own tech skills,

too many early childhood professionals reject media literacy because it involves use of screen media.

We should always look at screen time relative to other activities, using media mindfully and with intention and ensuring that it is part of a balanced day of rich and varied activities. That said, here are my top 15 responses to those who continue to resist integrating media literacy into early childhood education:

We live in a digital world. A quick look at a favorite website, online news source, or social network reveals that the digital world routinely merges print, image, and audio. The only way that children will thrive in this world - and harness the power that has traditionally accrued to those who are literate - is to learn how to "read" and "write" with pictures and sound, as well as with text.

Young children are already using media technologies, and they will continue to use them with or without us. Better that they use them with us. Otherwise their technology habits are likely to come from marketers, peers, or others who don't care about children as much as we do, and who may not share our values or expertise. By the way, early childhood professionals are also already using media technologies, both in their personal lives and with children. Media literacy provides the guidance they need to use that technology well and avoid modeling bad habits that children have to unlearn later.

It's our job to prepare children for the world we live in, not for the world that existed when our education system was designed. When the U.S. school system was developed, books, magazines, and newspapers - all forms of mass media - were the primary method of disseminating uniform information to a lot of people. So every year that a child is in school, they are required to spend a considerable amount of time learning read and analyze print media. It's time to update our efforts by recognizing that access to digital media technologies changes our relationship to information. Media literacy education gives educators a way to help children develop the judgment and ethics they need to navigate their online lives.

A commitment to equal opportunity demands that we address the "digital divide." Digital media technologies are central to the worlds of learning, work, and citizenship; that, alone obligates us to use classrooms, libraries, and child care sites to provide tech opportunities for children with limited home access. But the digital divide isn't just about access; it's also about whether or not children use devices productively. Media literacy education methods help early childhood educators model effective technology use, give children carefully scaffolded opportunities to practice, and encourage youngsters to share what they know with one another.

The digital world does more than combine modes of communication; it also merges the means of communication. As today's preschoolers grow into adolescence, they won't be choosing between computers, televisions, radios, music players, game consoles, e-readers, or phones; everything will routinely be accessed through a single device. That means the things we want children to do will be hard to separate from things to which we would prefer they not have access. And in a world where traditional adult "gatekeeping" of media content is less and less possible, it is essential to teach children how to analyze and evaluate content for themselves.

Media literacy education approaches technologies as tools, not learning outcomes. The goal of media literacy education isn't technology use; it's to prepare children to thrive in a media and technology-rich world. That approach keeps the emphasis where it should be: on sound pedagogy and learning. So media literacy lesson planning starts with the question, "What do we want children to learn?" Only then do we look at how digital devices and media literacy methods can help accomplish the goals.

This is especially true because young children don't typically apply learning from one domain to another. So even if we talk with preschoolers about books and consciously teach critical inquiry skills in the process, they won't necessarily use those skills in relation to electronic media. If we want children to apply reasoning and reflection to all the media they use and create, we have to model that habit and provide opportunities to practice. That doesn't mean allowing hours of daily screen time - media literacy is not an "anything goes" approach to technology. But it does require that we use screen media with children on a regular basis.

We should believe the research, not the headlines. Research has unquestionably shown that screen time can have negative effects, but in the vast majority of cases the concern-worthy findings apply only to "heavy" users/viewers. Most parents and educators don't actually read the research, so they miss that nuance. Instead, dramatic news headlines (intended to sell, more than inform) mislead us into questioning any screen use. However, going back to at least the 1980s (e.g., the California Assessment Program studies) research indicates that moderate use of high quality educational media results in better academic performance than no exposure at all, especially for children from under-resourced communities. We need to stop guilt-tripping people who use screen media in thoughtful, intentional, and balanced ways.

Media literacy education offers a way to meet children where they are. It provides a way to question media influence and choices while also respecting the media aspects of family and youth culture in the same way that we would respect children's ethnic identity or religion.

Media literacy is included in current professional standards. See, for example, Standard 15.4 on Computer and Information Technology in the PA Pre-K Learning Standards for Early Childhood or the NAEYC/Fred Rogers Center Joint Position Statement: Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8 .

May be reprinted for educational, non-profit use with the credit: From the edublog "TUNE IN Next Time" by Faith Rogow, Ph.D., InsightersEducation.com 2016

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Responding To Resistance: Why We Should Mandate Media Literacy in Early Childhood Education

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Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics grudgingly recognized the diversity of activities available using electronic screens and they have acknowledged that minimal screen time for toddlers and preschoolers might not ruin children for life and, in some cases, might even have some benefit.

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Just published May 2017 International Handbook of Media Literacy Education 1st Editionby Belinha S. De Abreu (Editor), Paul Mihailidis (Editor), Alice Y.L. Lee (Editor), Jad Melki (Editor), Julian McDougall (Editor)

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Just published May 2017 International Handbook of Media Literacy Education 1st Editionby Belinha S. De Abreu (Editor), Paul Mihailidis (Editor), Alice Y.L. Lee (Editor), Jad Melki (Editor), Julian McDougall (Editor)

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early childhood media mastery: a complete guide to teaching smart & responsible media use

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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Early Childhood Media Mastery: A Complete Guide to Teaching Smart & Responsible Media Use

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Do you want to use digital media to enhance your child's early development? Are you curious or concerned about how digital devices are impacting your child? Parents are bombarded by advice and "answers" to almost every major parenting issue from sleeping and eating to choosin...

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technology and critical literacy in early childhood

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education - effect of technological innovations on

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education / early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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Technology and Critical Literacy in Early Childhood

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What do new technologies and new forms of communication mean for young children growing up in the 21st century? How are they shaping the mindsets, identities and practices which impact their lives at home and at school? This book explores the intersection of technology and critical literacy, spec...

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Child | Data | Citizen research project and responds to concerns about children's data traces and their social and political implications in age of big data and artificial intelligence.

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Child | Data | Citizen research project and responds to concerns about children's data traces and their social and political implications in age of big data and artificial intelligence.

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How can we focus on quality over quantity in the ongoing issue of screen time rules? In this post, Mimi Ito suggests practical ways to focus on quality screen engagement and to avoid stressing about counting time. With this perspective, Mimi's research shows that extraordinary learning is possible when we allow young people to engage with the internet in the right ways. Mimi specializes in learning and new media, particularly among young people in Japan and the US. She is the co-founder of Connected Camps and is part of the Connected Learning Alliance. [Header image credit: D. C. Adams, CC BY 2.0]
Last fall, the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) finally backed down from their killjoy 'screen time' rules that had deprived countless kids of the freedom to pursue their interests and explore digital worlds. No screens in the first 2 years, no more than 2 hours a day. After pushing their famous 2×2 rule for almost two decades, now they advocate against a one-size-fits-all approach and suggest that parents can be 'media mentors' and not just time cops. But damage has been done.

For almost as long as the AAP 2×2 rules have been in place, I've been studying how multimedia, digital games, and the Internet can fuel extraordinary forms of learning and mobilization. Young people are growing up in a new era of information abundance where they can google anything and connect with specialized expert communities online. However, our research also indicates that most kids are not truly tapping the power of online learning. In part I blame the 2×2 guidelines for holding kids back, and putting parents in the role of policing rather than coaching media engagement.
Screen time is an outdated concept
By focusing on quality over quantity, families can move away from fear, maintain a healthy balance, and seek out extraordinary learning.

The idea that screens are bad for kids has gotten deeply entrenched. Parents worry about video game addiction, are plagued with guilt when they park their kid with a tablet, and judge mothers who bring Pokémon Go to ' the sanctuary of the playground '. Many parents pride themselves on following the old AAP guidelines; clocking screen time, believing this will lead to healthy kids. It's natural to hope that controlling access to a device might make our kids smart and well-adjusted, but if only it were that simple. Maybe it made more sense when TV was the only screen, but given the wide range of activities that screens are part of these days, a focus on screen time is too blunt an instrument.
Quality over quantity
My daughter taught me this lesson when she was twelve. One summer, I was irritated with the hours she was spending watching TV shows on YouTube. After I started clocking her screen time, she quickly developed a strategy. She would use her limited screen time on what I considered the most inane uses of the computer and I would inevitably give her more time for more "productive" screen activities like learning new skills or creating digital media. I eventually backed down and we installed Rescue Time on her computer, which tracks time on specific applications and websites. Rather than simply clocking time spent with screens, we started reflecting together on productivity and time management, a conversation that continues to this day even as she has left home to study overseas.

Based on an extensive study of digital parenting, Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone conclude that instead of quantity, parents needs to focus on 'context (where, when and how digital media are accessed), content (what is being watched or used) and connections (whether and how relationships are facilitated or impeded)'. Here are three ways to put this recommendation into action by letting go of fear, maintaining balance and hunting for extraordinary learning.

1. Stay attentive to red flags, and keep fears in perspective

Fears about the negatives of media engagement are real, but only for a minority of families. When I give talks about learning with digital media, occasionally a parent will stand up and tell a gut-wrenching story about cyberbullying or video game addiction that strikes fear in the hearts of parents in the room. They speak passionately about how important it was for them to pull the plug or set strict limits to nurture their child back to safety and health.

These are deeply troubling, important, and unusual experiences. Even the conservative AAP puts ' problematic' forms of Internet and gaming use at between 4%-8.5% of U.S. children and youth. This is a significant minority, and parents do need to be alert to warning signs. Some kids have a harder time setting limits to digital engagements, and the online world can also become a place for them to escape from problems in their face-to-face relationships. These families need to take a hard look at social media, games and the Internet not because they 'cause' these problems, but because they can amplify psychological and social distress. Solutions might include limiting gaming and social media, but should take into account the bigger picture which includes peer, family and other psychological and social factors. Simply limiting screen time without addressing deeper problems is not likely to lead to positive outcomes.

Even for problematic digital engagement, strict screen time rules, monitoring and surveillance are not always the best strategies, which is why even the AAP has moved away from them. In fact, being fearful, restrictive and controlling of kids' media use can backfire as it breeds a climate of mistrust, and kids learn to operate in secrecy. Teens generally describe parental surveillance as one of the biggest threats to their online privacy.

2. Maintain balance

Recent research shows that most parents do not have major fears and concerns about their kids' media engagement, and are heavily engaged in media themselves. Common Sense Media reports that parents engage with media at similar rates as their tween and teen kids (over nine hours a day!), and don't have the right to call the kettle black. The same report indicates that the overwhelming majority of parents feel that they are good media role models, and that digital and online media play a positive role in education and skill development.

Based on their research with a wide range of families, Blum-Ross and Livingstone offer some questions families can keep in mind, rather than watching the clock:

Is my child physically healthy and sleeping enough?

Is my child connecting socially with family and friends (in any form)?

Is my child engaged with and achieving in school?

Is my child pursuing interests and hobbies (in any form)?

Is my child having fun and learning in their use of digital media?

This approach is similar to what Common Sense Media advocates as a ' healthy family media diet '.

Most parents I hear from are not only relieved, but enthused to find a youth development 'expert' and parent who thinks the Internet can be good for kids, because it conforms to their own experience. After every talk I give, a parent or a teacher will share a story about how the Internet supported unique forms of learning for a child they know, whether that is a kid learning to write through online fan fiction, or how an online game exposed them to a new dimension of collaborative problem solving.

3. Join the hunt for extraordinary learning

But why settle for a balanced diet when you can have an extraordinary meal? Balance is important over the long term but sometimes passion should rule the day-the state Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described as ' flow' when one loses track of time while being completely immersed in a learning challenge. In my research, I've marveled over kids who are learning to code at younger and younger ages, have organized social media movements, or produce and distribute fan media for massive audiences. Check out this jaw-dropping video of an extraordinary young girl who mastered a niche form of dance by immersing herself in YouTube videos.

The Internet has helped fuel thousands of passionate learners like dubstepping Adilyn, an emerging new type of Internet-powered expert. We founded Connected Camps because Minecraft is a platform, like YouTube, where young people are connecting, creating, and learning from one another, tapping tools for digital creation and sharing, exploring new niches and nerding out in specialities that they would not otherwise have access to. I'm constantly awestruck at the massive artworks, role playing games, and organizations that young kids have built together in our Minecraft community. Just like the X-Games is an umbrella for a vast diversity of incomparable athletes in breathtaking specialties, Minecraft and the Internet are fueling highly idiosyncratic forms of creativity, expertise, mobilization and self expression.
Notes
Finding a groove isn't easy, and not every kid will dive into something with a singular passion. But the potential is there for online media and digital games to support just about every interest and curiosity under the sun. Even if it is just an amusing meme, a factoid, or a coding with Minecraft, without exposure and parental support, kids will not have the freedom, wisdom, or courage to explore and savor the vastness of the networked world. So let go of fear and join the hunt for extraordinary learning.
This post gives the views of the authors and does not represent the position of the LSE Parenting for a Digital Future blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
This text was originally published on Connected Camps and has been re-posted with permission.

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How dropping screen time rules can fuel extraordinary learning

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How can we focus on quality over quantity in the ongoing issue of screen time rules? In this post, Mimi Ito suggests practical ways to focus on quality screen engagement and to avoid stressing about counting time. With this perspective, Mimi's research shows that extraordinary learning is possible when we allow young people to engage with the internet in the right ways.

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Right from the Start in the Digital Age -- curricula activities

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Right from the Start in the Digital Age -- curricula activities

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Right from the Start in the Digital Age -- En Español

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Right from the Start in the Digital Age -- En Español

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The different ways in which parents handle their kids' use of technology are creating three distinct types of tech users - and setting the stage for a clash of cultures, says writer Alexandra Samuel.

The era of the digital native is over.If that declaration comes as a relief, you're most likely either an older tech user who is tired of feeling irrelevant, or a millennial frustrated with being reduced to a headphone-wearing cliché. In 2001, education consultant Mark Prensky coined this term - along with calling the analog-raised generation "digital immigrants" - to alert teachers to the emerging wave of students who'd be arriving at schools with new ways of thinking and absorbing information after growing up with computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones and other devices. The term was seized upon by news outlets, academics and businesses and ended up framing people's understanding of the group born between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

But it's time to retire the idea that tech aptitude and social outlook can be boiled down to whether someone is a digital native or not. Through surveying more than 10,000 North American parents, I've found that parents are managing their kids' use of technology in very different ways, and as a result, three distinct groups of young people - digital orphans, exiles and heirs - will soon be entering colleges and workplaces (each of them accounts for roughly one-third of kids North American kids under 18). By understanding them, we can prepare for coming conflicts and changes. Of course, just as Pensky's "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" seem overly simplistic today, my types - orphans, exiles, heirs - will no doubt fracture further. But they provide us with a lens to think about how young people are growing up with tech and what impact these formative experiences could have.

Digital orphans have grown up with a great deal of tech access - but very little guidance. They've been raised by parents who've given them near-unlimited access to technology, yet their mothers and fathers have had few conversations with them about what they're learning, seeing and experiencing and why it matters. So orphans might end up prioritizing online networks over face-to-face interactions, leading to shaky interpersonal skills. While they'll probably grow into adults who feel at home on the Internet - they'll suggest organizing cleaning duties with their roommates via a scheduling app, for example, rather than hashing it out over coffee - they might not think a lot about what kind of home they want it to be. And without reflecting on the consequences of technology, they could end up bringing some of the worst of the Internet into offline society (think: trolling, flaming), instead of actively working to elevate on- and offline life.

Digital exiles are at the opposite extreme - they've been raised with minimal technology. Their parents' goal has been to limit their children's access in order to delay their entry into the digital world until their teens, if possible - the age when kids are least likely to listen to their parents' advice. Many exiles will throw themselves into their online lives with a vengeance, and they may struggle with finding a balanced approach to technology. They'll become intense social networking users, as well the ones likely to get into various forms of online trouble. Other exiles, however, could continue following their parents' lead and mature into neo-Luddites. This might lead to conflict - while society is willing to smile upon the grandparents who've yet to embrace texting, it's unclear if this tolerance will extend to the young people who explicitly reject technology. Will governments and corporations be willing to offer face-to-face service options for citizens who reject digital channels ideologically? That's the kind of question these exiles will force us to answer.

Digital heirs have impressive tech skills, thanks largely to their parents and teachers. Their adult mentors have encouraged and directed their tech education, enrolling them in classes and having conversations with them about being a responsible Internet user. By the time they go to college, they know how to build websites, and film and edit video. I believe they'll bring this tech-savvy "maker" orientation into their consumer, social and political encounters, demanding digital andprogrammable products and services, like online publications that let you choose what content you'll see (and where and when you'll see it); products that go beyond customization into co-creation; and communities that enable citizens to create services by providing data, open online platforms and hack spaces. Due to their higher levels of tech understanding, heirs could face challenges in dealing with their less knowledgeable peers so they'll need a little charm and flexibility to get along.

Heading for a collision: the worldviews and communication styles of these three types. As our culture continues its transition from an analog society to a digital/analog hybrid, the way people relate to technology will shape their professional opportunities, their relationship to authority, and the way they interact with one another. We've already seen the digital-parenting divide give rise to disagreements - between two parents over when they should get their child a cell phone; between schools and parents over how technology should be used in the classroom; and between two families that have warring ideas about which computer games their kids are allowed to play together (or if they're online at all). Fast forward five or ten years, and these kids will be adults having their own showdowns. But this time it will be about whether to work for the companies that provide full-time jobs or the ones that rely on the newest technology but offer only freelance gigs; and whether to vote for the politicians who stand for the policies they want, or improvise their own workarounds through hacking, piracy and DIY online communities.

The impact of these differences will shape the Internet and the world. Ultimately, how we use the Internet - what we pay attention to, what we ignore - determines the content and experience of the Internet itself (see my TEDxVictoria Talk: Reasons to stop apologizing for your online life). Digital heirs know this, and they can play a role in mentoring the rest of their generation to use and shape the Internet. But it's also possible that the tensions among the three groups could intensify the polarization that already besets the Internet (and society), as each group's different technology preferences lead them to retreat to the online communities and platforms that suit only them. By challenging the assumption that every child growing up today is a one-size-fits all digital native, we can make sure each of them can find their own way to relate to technology - whether using it to accomplish basic tasks or to create new technologies and worlds. Being aware of our kids' differences now is what could help keep them from drifting apart.

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Opinion: Forget "digital natives." Here's how kids are really using the Internet

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The era of the digital native is over.If that declaration comes as a relief, you're most likely either an older tech user who is tired of feeling irrelevant, or a millennial frustrated with being reduced to a headphone-wearing cliché.

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How can we help children learn to self-advocate using the media to tell their stories?

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How can we help children learn to self-advocate using the media to tell their stories?

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This week, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed written by a class of fifth graders. It's entitled, "You Don't Know Us." And it's retort for much of the news media - written by a group of students from the Bradwell School of Excellence in the city's South Shore neighborhood, which is one of the areas that has seen so many murders in recent years, a place some have come to call Chi-raq. We're joined now by two of those students from Bradwell - Rondayle Sanders and Damiontaye Rogers, as well as their teacher Linsey Rose. Let me say hello to all of you. Thanks for being with us.

LINSEY ROSE: Hello.

RONDAYLE SANDERS: Hello.

ROSE: Thank you for having us.

SIMON: I was very moved by this essay, when I saw it in the paper this week. And I wonder if I can get each of you to read an excerpt from this essay.

SANDERS: (Reading) We saw your news trucks and cameras here last week. And we read the articles, "Six Shot At South Shore Laundromat" and "Another Mass Shooting In Terror Town." We saw the reporters with fancy suits in front of our Laundromat. You spend 24 hours here. But you really don't know us. Those who don't know us think this is a poor neighborhood with those abandoned buildings everywhere with wood covering the windows and broken doors. Those who don't know us see the police on the corner and think that we're all violence and drugs.

DAMIONTAYE ROGERS: (Reading) We want you to know us. We aren't afraid.

SANDERS: (Reading) We know that man on the corner. He works at the store and gives us free Lemonheads. Those girls jumping rope are Precious and Aniya and Nivia. The people in the suits are people not going to funerals, but to church.

ROGERS: If you listen, you will hear the laughter and chattering from a group of girls on the corner, who are best friends and really care about each other. Do you see the smile on the cashier's face when the kids walk in? Why - because this neighborhood is filled with love. This isn't Chi-raq. This is home. This is us.

SIMON: That's a very fine piece of work that you guys did. Thank you for reading it.

SANDERS: Thank you.

SIMON: What made you write it - Rondayle?

SANDERS: It wasn't really hard to write it 'cause I always try to see the good things out of the bad. So as a class we wrote it, in spite of a lot of people. So I'm really proud of myself.

SIMON: (Laughing) Well, I bet your family and your friends - everybody's proud of you. Damiontaye, why did you think it was important to do this?

ROGERS: I thought about, like, if we write this - like, usually a lot of people read the newspaper. So, like, maybe we'll write it to try to change, like, where we live at.

SIMON: Ms. Rose - but I understand when this essay came out, you had a hard time finding a copy of the paper.

ROSE: Yeah, I was so excited on Monday and I had called couple of students on Friday to tell them it was going to be published. And I said, oh, you can go to the gas station and get a copy of the Tribune. And that's a gas station that we all go to all the time. I went - got there and went in and there's no Tribune. And I said to the gas station guys there's no Tribune? They said, no, they don't bring it down there. So I ended up having to drive several blocks to find a copy to take to them.

SIMON: So, you know, without trying to make this into too much of a metaphor, it seems to me, both reading this essay and hearing that, that you're kind of saying that the news media will come to South Shore and Woodlawn for a murder. But they won't see the folks who live there as part of their audience and bring in their newspaper?

SANDERS: I think you're absolutely right because in the newspaper that was positive things - us writing that article.

SIMON: Yeah.

SANDERS: But it's sad to see that they won't send out copies for us to see the positive parts of life. But they'll send out news trucks to see the negative parts of life.

SIMON: Ms. Rose, is this hard for your students?

ROSE: To write it?

SIMON: To write it, to live it.

ROSE: Yeah, it was hard when we started because when we started working on that first part of the essay - you know, what do you think people know about you? The students were able to rattle off lots of the stereotypes they know about their neighborhood. But when we got to the second part, it took us a while to think of like, what are the great things? And I think that's a testament to the narrative that we hear so often and furthermore, a testament to the need for the counter-narrative that they wrote, so that they can tell a different story of their lives and their experience.

SIMON: Rondayle, what do you want to do in the next few years or when you grow up?

SANDERS: I think I want to be more public, so I can make a bigger change or a bigger impact on our neighborhood - like to give back to the neighborhood.

SIMON: Yeah, you want to help your community?

SANDERS: Yes.

SIMON: How do you think you can do that?

SANDERS: I think I can help my community by - keep writing - keep writing what I feel, keep writing the good things about where I live.

SIMON: From the Bradwell School of Excellence on Chicago's South Shore. Rondayle Sanders, thanks very much.

SANDERS: You're welcome.

SIMON: Damiontaye Rogers, thank you.

ROGERS: You're welcome.

SIMON: And Linsey Rose - Ms. Rose, thank you very much.

ROSE: Thank you for having us and hearing their voices.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Chicago Students To News Media: 'You Don't Know Us'

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST: This week, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed written by a class of fifth graders. It's entitled, "You Don't Know Us." And it's retort for much of the news media - written by a group of students from the Bradwell School of Excellence in the city's South Shore neighborhood, which is one of the areas that has seen so many murders in recent years, a place some have come to call Chi-raq.

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America's most innovative schools constantly help train teachers to use new technologies, but the barriers to creating such a culture in high-poverty schools can seem insurmountable

It's like any other small video-game-development studio, except the coders are 10 and their games have titles like "Evil Donut Unicorn Ping Pong."

The scene unfolded in a classroom at South Fayette Intermediate School, about 20 minutes from downtown. The walls were covered with whiteboards and sticky notes. Students worked in teams, arguing passionately and high-fiving when there was a breakthrough. Teacher Victoria Bishop circled the room, quietly making sure her 5th graders' code included functionals and conditionals, the two computer science concepts embedded in the day's lesson.

Bishop is 23. She's not yet through her first year at South Fayette. Already, she's developed a solid knowledge of Scratch, the kid-friendly programming language her students are using. She's learned to design classroom projects that cultivate in her students everything from computational thinking strategies to narrative storytelling skills.

In addition to her classroom duties, she's helping lead a districtwide "Python incubator." The high-level programming language powers Instagram and is used to test microchips at Intel. Soon, Bishop will be working to integrate it into South Fayette's 8th grade curriculum.

A year ago, she was teaching art and music at a local Catholic school.

What if Bishop had been told then what she'd be doing now?

"I would've said you're crazy," she said.

Above:Students in the South Fayette schools are benefiting from the district's clear vision for what teaching and learning with technology should look like: "computational thinking," "human-centered design," and "innovation mindset."
-Swikar Patel for Education Week

Over the past decade, the "digital divide" in America's public schools has shifted. Classrooms in nearly every corner of the country have been flooded with devices and software. High-speed internet connectivity has expanded dramatically.

Undoubtedly, there are still big disparities in the technologies available to the haves and the have-nots.

But in places like Pittsburgh's southwestern suburbs, where some local school districts are engaged in a kind of ed-tech arms race, just offering kids the latest-model laptop isn't enough. Instead, what distinguishes the most innovative schools is what students and teachers do with the technology they have. Parents want their children prepared to shape the future, not get steamrolled by it. To make that happen, schools like South Fayette Intermediate try to surround teachers like Bishop with supports and learning opportunities, so they can continually find new and powerful ways to integrate technology into their classrooms.

For most districts, it's a huge challenge.

There's widespread agreement that teachers aren't coming out of college well-prepared to navigate this new digital environment. And for teachers already in the workforce, professional development hasn't kept up with the pace of technological change. The percent of 4th grade students whose teachers say they've received training on how to integrate computers into their classroom instruction has remained flat since 2009, according to a new Education Week Research Center analysis of survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Inequities are also persistent. Teachers in high-poverty schools are consistently less likely than their counterparts to say they've received technology-integration training, the Education Week Research Center analysis found. The gap isn't getting any smaller.

In Pennsylvania, home to a wide digital-training divide between its high- and low-poverty schools, the numbers tell part of the story. But to really understand the disparities in how schools help teachers learn to integrate classroom technology, it helps to compare a district like South Fayette, where 80 percent of students are white and just 13 percent are poor, to a district like nearby Sto-Rox, which is 33 percent white and 77 percent poor.

South Fayette shines as a model of what experts say works best.

District leadership has a clear vision for how teaching and learning with technology should look: "Computational thinking," "human-centered design," "innovation mindset"- the district's intermediate school is literally built to reflect its embrace of such concepts. Each floor is laid out around a large central room that is specifically outfitted for groups of students to work together on projects like producing videos and programming robots.

Formal professional development at South Fayette also goes well beyond in-service days. The intermediate school, for example, has a dedicated STEAM-short for science, technology, engineering, arts, and math-instructor, Shad Wachter. He works alongside other teachers to design lessons, teach classes, and troubleshoot problems. South Fayette staff members also have access to some of the best minds in the region: The district is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to help develop its new computer science curriculum and train its teachers.

Before her video-game-development lesson started, Bishop, Wachter, and another teacher talked about their careers. Again and again, the conversation touched on themes like trust and collaboration.

Eighth-year Superintendent Billie Rondinelli was listening in. She's a demanding leader, 100 percent serious about making sure her students are "globally competitive." She spent the morning making rounds on an injured ankle that some of her staff feared was broken. She didn't so much as grimace.

But as the South Fayette teachers talked, the superintendent's eyes began to well up.

Rondinelli took off her glasses, wiped her eyes, and apologized for the display of emotion.

"It's just a bit overwhelming to hear," she said. "We've worked so hard to build this."

A day earlier and 10 miles away, a very different conversation unfolded at Sto-Rox High School, nestled in the heart of the once-bustling steel town of McKees Rocks.

Superintendent Frank Dalmas and Principal Tim Beck find the idea of comparing their district to South Fayette almost laughable.

A few days earlier, the Pittsburgh Business Times released its annual rankings of 103 school districts in Allegheny County. South Fayette was No. 1. Sto-Rox was No. 102.

Again and again, Dalmas and Beck steer the conversation about classroom technology back to two broader topics: lack of resources and problems in the community they serve.

For a decade, Sto-Rox has been bleeding students. The district now sends more than 20 percent of its annual budget to charter schools to cover the costs of educating students who fled in search of better options.

Dalmas talks up one of the partnerships he's most proud of. He's given the local police keys to the school, and he had the building's stairwells painted in color-coded patterns to make it easier for them to respond to emergencies.

How do the superintendent and principal see their students' futures?

"Our responsibility is to prepare kids for the next phase of their lives," Dalmas said. "Whether that be fast food, retail, or a warehouse."

When the conversation eventually turned back to training teachers to use classroom technology, there was much less to say.

That's not surprising, said Naomi Harm, the CEO of the Innovative Educator Consulting Network, which works with schools around the country on technology integration.

"When a lot of things are broken, how do you prioritize and fix what's most important?" Harm asked.

Professional development for technology rarely rises to the top of the triage list.

That's been the experience of Joe Krajcovic, now in his 13th year of teaching at Sto-Rox.

Krajcovic's life-science classroom feels frozen in time. Students from years past have covered the walls with a random assortment of murals: Woody Woodpecker, a box of Special K cereal, Earth as a melting ice cream cone.

Above: A student walks into a classroom at Sto-Rox high school, where professional development for technology rarely rises to the top of the priority list.
-Swikar Patel for Education Week

On this day, the most evident technology was the smartphones that occupied the attention of several of the teens. One young woman sat off by herself, staring out the window, listening to music.

Krajcovic introduced the day's lab.

"So basically we're going to be blowing up marshmallows in the microwave?" a student asked.

After the lab ended, Krajcovic sat down to talk. When it comes to technology-related professional development, he says the same things as the experts: Vision, resources, support, and relationships make for a school culture that supports continuous learning.

Asked if those things are in place in Sto-Rox, Krajcovic folded his hands.

Obvious problems with the district's technology setup are an immediate first barrier. Depending on whom you ask, Sto-Rox has somewhere between 30 to 60 Chromebooks for its 1,300 students. The devices sat unused for more than a year. Until recently, the district didn't have consistent Wi-Fi.

That problem has since been fixed. But now a dozen or so of the school's interactive whiteboards are out of commission. The adapters that connect them to the school's network have gone bad. Each would cost about $35 to replace. It's late in the school year, and money is tight. Maybe next year.

The school's best hope for new technology now rests with Dontez Ford, a former standout athlete at Sto-Rox who recently signed with the NFL's Detroit Lions. Ford has been leading a campaign to raise money to buy more Chromebooks for his alma mater.

The people at Sto-Rox care, Krajcovic concluded. But the question that will always get the most attention is how to keep the school from running out of money.

It's not as though such challenges are new. Education Week has covered the digital divide in Pittsburgh since at least 2001. Then, we reported on how city school students were still using Tandy 1000s with floppy disks.

A decade ago, the Pennsylvania education department tried to address the inequities. State officials came up with $60 million a year for a program called Classrooms for the Future. They provided new computers to every high school in the state and hired nearly 500 coaches to provide in-class technology support for teachers.

Pennsylvania ended the program in 2011, following budget cuts.

As Krajcovic headed out of his classroom, he was stopped by a woman holding a clipboard. She was from the state education department. She wanted to check whether he had the school's anti-bullying policy posted on his wall. He didn't.

Krajcovic shrugged.

"To survive in this environment, you have to be able to adapt to the challenges," he said.

Few people have thought more about the future of learning, how to support teachers using new technology, and the persistent inequality in western Pennsylvania's schools than Gregg S. Behr.

Behr is the executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Grable Foundation. He's also the heart of the region's Remake Learning initiative. The sprawling network of schools, museums, libraries, after-school programs, and businesses has become a national model for how to support STEM, STEAM, maker education, computer science, and other "modern learning" approaches.

In one form or another, much of Grable's money goes to teacher professional development. Behr's approach is to seed and nurture a community of educators who can inspire each other, share ideas and figure out common problems together.

This year's Grable-funded Remake Learning Days, for example, featured dozens of free meet-ups and workshops for Pittsburgh-area teachers, covering everything from next-generation digital storytelling to Laser Cutting 101. Behr has a 67-page file with example after example of outside-the-box professional-development opportunities in the region.

"There needs to be a network that teachers can plug into," he explained.

Slowly, that network has become accessible to places like Sto-Rox.

Over the past year, for example, Superintendent Dalmas and Principal Beck have latched on to STEAM as a strategy that might help staunch the flow of students to charters.

A $20,000 grant from Grable paid for the school's first 3D printers, some video equipment, and a computer-controlled router to upgrade its shops.

Beck and his staff wrote the grant application with the help of a colleague in the neighboring Montour district, a leader in the Remake Learning community. "He told us the magic words to put in," Beck said.

That same guy from Montour also called Beck to suggest he send one of his teachers to something called Agency by Design. Beck hadn't heard of the group and didn't have time to check it out. But he trusted the Remake Learning network. So he sent first-year Sto-Rox science teacher Anthony Martini to take part.

The benefits are starting to show.

Inside Martini's Inquiry Science class, students work on a project that entails building bridges out of cardboard. Right now, they're doing preliminary research using Chromebooks that Martini has managed to commandeer. Their assignment is likely to expand; an earlier class project on volcanoes evolved into a massive effort in which students had to construct entire metropolises, assume the roles of various city officials, and draft plans for everything from emergency evacuations to crisis communications.

After class, Martini said, his goal is to get his students excited about asking "how" and "why"' again.

"I was a bad student. I can't sit still, I can't take tests, I can't do any of that," he said. "But I've done a lot of things in my life, and I'm resourceful. I try to bring those experiences into education."

Martini could talk all day about Agency by Design, a small network of local teachers who are experimenting with new ways to assess students that is consistent with hands-on, maker education. He's active in Remake Learning, and he has a growing network of teacher colleagues he swaps ideas with via social media.

The Sto-Rox administration has been "awesome," Martini said, offering nothing but encouragement for his efforts to engage in outside professional learning opportunities.

Does he get that same support inside the school?

Martini pauses.

"We're in a transitional stage," he said.

When it comes to training teachers to integrate classroom technology, it's not hard to spot what's missing at Sto-Rox.

Resources, for one. The 5th graders at South Fayette have ready access to computers and neatly arranged shelves of iPods and robotics equipment and art supplies. The maker corner of Martini's high school science room is a jumble of salvaged PVC pipe, glass jars, and scrap wood, plus some Lego robotics kits he found sitting unused in the middle school.

But it's more than money. At Sto-Rox, there appears to be no clear vision from the top about what learning should look like and why. There's limited time for teachers to formally collaborate. There's not a schoolwide culture that leads staff to push each other to be constantly finding more powerful uses of classroom technology. And there's little of the stability that low-poverty schools often take for granted.

For all his foundation's focus on equity, Behr said, $13 million a year in grants is nowhere near enough to address the full extent of such gaps or the racism and poverty that lead some students to get far fewer opportunities than others.

At the end of the day in Sto-Rox, Principal Beck was about to offer his final thoughts.

He was quickly interrupted.

A staff member had been alerted to a Facebook threat made against a former student who likes to show up outside the building after school.

Afraid that Sto-Rox students might get caught up in a shooting, the administration decided to dismiss classes 15 minutes early.

The doors were opened. Alarms blared. Beck tugged on his green Sto-Rox baseball cap and grabbed a walkie-talkie. Outside, a police cruiser slowly circled the building.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

But 7th period was cut short again.

"South Fayette doesn't have to deal with this stuff," Beck said.

Why does the technology-training divide matter? At many schools like Sto-Rox, new models of hands-on, tech-infused, project-based learning are not seen as a way to fundamentally transform students' lives and future prospects.

"STEAM is important," Dalmas, the superintendent, said. "But we also have to get our kids prepared to go and work at a 9-to-5 job right out of high school."

In places like South Fayette, meanwhile, everyone seems to recognize that for today's children, fluency with technology and algorithms and computer code will be crucial to unlocking future opportunities. As a result, the entire district is organized to take maximum advantage of every professional learning opportunity it can find. For its students, the benefits compound over time.

A whirlwind tour of South Fayette concluded in a conference room at the high school, where the district's director of technology and innovation assembled a group of standout students.

These kids already know Python, the computer-programming language. They taught themselves.

Last summer, the district tapped them to share what they know with South Fayette staff.

"Really, teachers should act more as facilitators," Parv Shrivastava, 14, said matter-of-factly. "It allows students to be more creative and explore the content, and it helps with knowledge retention."

Shrivastava is in 9th grade. He just took the most rigorous Advanced Placement computer science course available. Next, he wants to teach himself about machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Sitting in the back corner of the conference room, South Fayette teacher Brian Garlick shook his head and laughed.

Garlick started at the district two decades ago, teaching wood shop and metal shop.

In 2002-03, when South Fayette opened its new high school, he took over the new technology education lab. It started with computer-aided design software and computer-controlled machine equipment, then evolved to include 3D printers, circuitry, and robotics.

Now, Garlick said, he's in the midst of another major transition. Next year, South Fayette High will open a new "fab lab" full of the latest prototyping equipment. He's been tapped to run it.

To prepare, Garlick said, he plans on spending the summer learning to write code. In order to help his students build the apps and underwater robots and other technologies they're interested in, he'll need to become more comfortable with programming Arduino microcontrollers and small Raspberry Pi computers.

It's a long way from drill presses and table saws.

But as Garlick pondered the third steep climb of his career-long learning curve with classroom technology, he sounded more energized than exhausted.

"I better get my ass in gear," Garlick said, "or these kids are going to blow right by me."

Published in Print: June 14, 2017, as Tech-Training Divide
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Poor Students Face Digital Divide in How Teachers Learn to Use Tech

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It's like any other small video-game-development studio, except the coders are 10 and their games have titles like "Evil Donut Unicorn Ping Pong." The scene unfolded in a classroom at South Fayette Intermediate School, about 20 minutes from downtown. The walls were covered with whiteboards and sticky notes.

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Chips' most recent book with focuses on family engagement and educators as media mentors

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family engagement in the digital age: early childhood educators as media mentors

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early childhood education - computer-assisted instruction

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early childhood education - parent participation

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education/early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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Family Engagement in the Digital Age: Early Childhood Educators as Media Mentors

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Family Engagement in the Digital Age: Early Childhood Educators as Media Mentors explores how technology can empower and engage parents, caregivers and families, and the emerging role of media mentors who guide young children and their families in the 21st century. This thought-provoking guide to...

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Dr. Chip Donohue's first book which feature's Faith's chapter

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Dr. Chip Donohue's first book which feature's Faith's chapter

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technology and digital media in the early years: tools for teaching and learning

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education / early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years: Tools for Teaching and Learning

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Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years: Tools for Teaching and Learning [Chip Donohue] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A Co-Publication of Routledge and NAEYC Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years offers early childhood teacher educators

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Watch our 2016-17 Archdiocese of Chicago TEC Mentors play to learn media literacy skills

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Watch our 2016-17 Archdiocese of Chicago TEC Mentors play to learn media literacy skills

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Playing to learn: TEC Mentors 2016-17 from Chicago Archdiocese Schools

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TEC Center friend and CPS Preschool teacher, Erin Stanfill shares how  designing her classroom for tech integration supports media literacy in ec

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TEC Center friend and CPS Preschool teacher, Erin Stanfill shares how  designing her classroom for tech integration supports media literacy in ec

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early childhood education (field of study)

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PreK Classroom Technology Tour - Part 1: Technology Hub

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Burley Elementary School Pre-kindergarten teacher Erin Stanfill gives us a tour of the various places she integrates technology in her classroom. In this first part of a three part video series, Erin describes her "Technology Hub". In this video, she explains her rationale for its location in her classroom and the reasons she chooses to put certain technology tools close together.

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Don't forget to join NAMLE! Membership is FREE!

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Don't forget to join NAMLE! Membership is FREE!

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National Association for Media Literacy Education

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Do you have a passion for media literacy education?

Do you believe media literacy education is an essential skill in the 21 st century?

Do you want to connect with other people who feel the same way?

Then join NAMLE today and become part of our open media literacy education network.
NAMLE Membership is FREE for individuals.
For more information about the recent changes to NAMLE's membership, see this FAQ document here.

When you become a NAMLE member, you join a network of educators, researchers, media artists, community members, advocates, and organizations dedicated to advancing media literacy education in the United States and beyond.

Become a member and...

Support the nationwide effort to expand the field of media literacy

Meet and network with other members doing work in media literacy education

Participate in Media Literacy Week

Submit articles to the Journal of Media Literacy Education

Attend our biennial conference

Browse our member directory, search for members near and far, and send direct messages to members in our Membership Portal.

Submit your book, film or curriculum resource to be promoted and archived in the NAMLE Resource Hub

Any questions about individual membership?

Email us at namle@namle.net.
Join NAMLE today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you have a passion for media literacy education? Do you believe media literacy education is an essential skill in the 21st century? Do you want to connect with other people who feel the same way? Then join NAMLE today and become part of our open media literacy education network.

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by Victoria Rideout and Vikki Katz
February 3, 2016

Recent research on digital media use points to two important gaps in educational opportunity for low-income families with young children. First, there is an access gap. Second, there is what scholars refer to as a participation gap, in which digital resources are not well guided or supported to ensure educational progress. Despite these barriers, many low-income families are using media and new technologies in creative ways to support their children's pathways to success and to strengthen family relationships. In this report, media and policy expert Victoria Rideout and Rutgers University scholar Vikki Katz explore the current uses of digital technologies to help promote educational opportunities for all through a national survey of nearly 1,200 low-income parents of school-age children and in-person interviews with lower-income, Hispanic families in three communities located in Arizona, California, and Colorado.
Download the full report (PDF) Download the Appendix
For more information, please see digitalequityforlearning.org.

On February 3, 2016, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Rutgers University presented Digital Equity: Technology and Learning in the Lives of Lower-Income Families at a forum co-hosted by New America in Washington, D.C.

Part 1:

Part 2:

View the presentations by Michael Levine, Victoria Rideout, and Vikki Katz below:

View the day's full agenda here and the social media highlights here.

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Opportunity for All? Technology and Learning in Lower-Income Families

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by Victoria Rideout and Vikki KatzFebruary 3, 2016 Recent research on digital media use points to two important gaps in educational opportunity for low-income families with young children. First, there is an access gap. Second, there is what scholars refer to as a participation gap, in which digital resources are not well guided or supported to ensure educational progress.

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The global nonprofit behind Sesame Street and so much more, where unforgettable characters, passionate educators, and best-in-class partners come together on a mission to help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.

Mission-driven. Kid Focused.

We care about one thing: children. And we're working to meet their needs in all sorts of ways: educating with great shows and other content full of endearing characters and proven educational value, enriching lives and creating possibilities with social impact work around the world, and building experiences that bring families of all shapes and sizes together.

We'd love to keep you posted about all the good things going on at the Workshop.

Team Up with the Workshop!

When you support Sesame Workshop, you're making a meaningful difference in the lives of children around the world. Join us!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The global nonprofit behind Sesame Street and so much more, where unforgettable characters, passionate educators, and best-in-class partners come together on a mission to help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. We care about one thing: children.

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U of M's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Digital Media Guide for Parents

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U of M's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Digital Media Guide for Parents

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Can A.I. help build better educational apps for kids? That's a question Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the popular children's TV program "Sesame Street" and others, aims to answer. The company has teamed up with IBM to create the first vocabulary learning app powered by IBM's A.I., which adapts itself the child's current reading level and vocabulary range, then continues to intelligently adjust as the child's vocabulary skills improve.

IBM and Sesame Workshop announced last year that the two companies would work together on a line of cognitive apps, games and educational toys. This new app is the first result of that three-year partnership.

The companies have now just completed a pilot trial for the app, where it was introduced to over 150 students in Georgia's Gwinnett County Public Schools. Located in the Atlanta metro area, Gwinnett County schools (GCPS) is one of the top urban school districts in the U.S., and the 13th largest district in the nation. It's also a three-time finalist and two-time winner of The Broad Prize for Urban Education.

The app itself is built for preschool and Kindergarten-aged children on the IBM and Sesame Intelligent Play and Learning Platform. This IBM Cloud-based platform is designed to take advantage of A.I. platform IBM Watson's cognitive capabilities, which are then tied to Sesame Workshop's understanding and expertise in the field of early childhood education.

During the pilot program, students and educators tested the app in a classroom environment on tablet computers.

The app uses Sesame Street characters along with educational videos and word games to help student enhance their vocabulary. Teachers, meanwhile, can monitor their children's vocabulary development in real-time through a secure dashboard and then adjust the lessons, pacing, and curriculum to each child's needs.

The app also personalizes itself to individual children using adaptive assessments to determine the child's current vocabulary range, then delivers learning experiences that focus on specific words. As the child continues to use the app, it will also adapt further to focus more heavily on those words and other areas that require additional attention.

The pilot program was the first phase of a longer term process that will examine whether or not a learning experience like this can demonstrably improve a child's vocabulary. However, the initial findings are promising - after collecting 18,000 assessments from multiple choice questions over a two-week period, students appeared to have acquire new vocabulary as a result of the app.

For example, kindergarteners learned words like "arachnid," "amplify," "camouflage," and "applause," which are typically considered above their grade level.

Beyond that, the students seemed to understand the words' meaning in context outside of the application. For example, when one class found a spider in the classroom, a kid shouted "arachnid!" Another teacher said children were able to notice forms of "camouflage" when studying animals and their skin patterns.

However, the app is still in early stages of development. The feedback from the Gwinnett pilot will be incorporated into a new version of the app, which will be introduced to more schools in an expanded pilot that begins this fall.

The app and others like it will also in the future be made available on the IBM Cloud for wide adoption in schools worldwide.

Technology that takes advantage of adaptive learning techniques to personalize itself to individual learners, as well as those that relegate teachers to the position of classroom mentor, are popular new trends in education. A recent NYT feature story, for example, highlighted ongoing educational programs led or funded by tech billionaires, which leveraged techniques like adaptive learning, individualized instruction and personalization, to help students learn.

But while the tech leaders backing these new ways of learning have a vested interest in pumping out future engineers for the companies they run, Sesame Workshop's historical focus has simply been about improving education and learning through the use of media and technology.

"A generation ago, 'Sesame Street' used the ubiquitous presence of television to reach vulnerable children who did not have access to the learning opportunities that affluent and middle-class kids did. It worked very well," Sesame Workshop CEO Jeffrey Dunn said, when announcing the IBM partnership last year. "Now, through this collaboration with IBM and Watson, we expect to develop the next generation of tailored learning tools."

With the launch of the new app, he adds, "educational technology like the platform we've created with IBM Watson is a promising new channel for learning opportunities inside and outside the classroom, and we're excited to explore it further."
Image credits: IBM

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Sesame Workshop and IBM team up to test a new A.I.-powered teaching method

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Can A.I. help build better educational apps for kids? That's a question Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the popular children's TV program "Sesame Street" and others, aims to answer. The company has teamed up with IBM to create the first vocabulary learning app powered by IBM's A.I., which adapts itself the child's current reading level and vocabulary range, then continues to intelligently adjust as the child's vocabulary skills improve.

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Center for Media Literacy blog post by Faith Rogow 

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Center for Media Literacy blog post by Faith Rogow 

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Introduction

Three-year-old Hannah looks up from the television and announces that she wants to invite Cassie (the youngest dragon from Sesame Workshop's cartoon, Dragon Tales) to her upcoming birthday party. Her mother, a teacher recently trained in media literacy, tries out all her best strategies to convince Hannah that Cassie isn't real, but no matter what she does, Hannah doesn't seem to understand.

That's because the vast majority of media literacy materials and strategies have been designed for middle and high schoolers and, more infrequently, elementary level students. Rarely are those resources developmentally appropriate for preschoolers. So mom's efforts might have worked wonderfully for her fourth graders, but they demanded skills that were developmentally beyond the reach of her three-year-old daughter.

The common concept of media literacy as the ability to analyze, access, and produce media seems completely out of reach for preschoolers. For example, while we reasonably expect thirteen year olds to be able to look at news with a critical eye, many people don't want three-year-olds to watch the news at all, let alone analyze it. And we rightly hesitate to place expensive media equipment in hands that have only recently graduated from using a sippy cup.

So if preschoolers can't analyze or produce media, and it is inappropriate for them to have access to things we know they can't understand, what might media literacy mean in the context of early childhood education? Formal research on the teaching of media literacy to preschoolers is almost non-existent, so no one can yet suggest a definitive answer. However, what we know about print literacy might suggest some initial strategies.

We don't expect preschoolers to be able to understand the nuances of Shakespeare or write an essay. We do expect that if we start them with simpler building blocks they will someday master these skills. So we introduce toddlers to the alphabet and read aloud their favorite books and offer crayons. By themselves, none of these things enables junior to analyze Macbeth or write a sonnet, but they provide the foundation on which more complex skills are built. So what do we do for young children if we want them to become fluent in non-print media? Is there an "ABCs" of media literacy?

Media-Inspired Materialism

It might seem natural to start our quest for an answer by trying to solve common media-related problems, such as the in-store-"I-want-it-now" whine sparked by something the child (or the child's friend) has seen on TV. We can engage older children in a discussion about why they want something and how companies whose job it is to sell things might have influenced their desires. But preschoolers are not capable of the abstract thought necessary to comprehend motive. In other words, they won't be able to understand that people who produce their favorite TV programs or websites or videos may be trying to sell them something. This inability to understand motive is one of the reasons that preschoolers often don't distinguish between "programs" and "commercials."

It also means we must temper our expectations that preschoolers can be taught to resist commercial messages. For example, very young children tend to focus on one thing at a time and they don't always make links between things that adults see as related. So we can show a young child the contrast between an actual toy and the version shown on TV, and they will probably understand the differences as they relate to that toy, but they may not apply what they learned to the next appealing thing they see on TV.

We can also introduce youngsters to the concept of advertising by playing the "What are they trying to sell?" game whenever commercials come on. See who can be first to guess what the ad is for. The game is not only fun; it will help young children learn to distinguish between different kinds of programming.

However, because media literacy that centers on consumer education ultimately requires understanding the motives of media sponsors, it isn't the best approach for early childhood audiences.

Real of Pretend

Another common issue that tends to de-rail early media literacy lessons is the "it isn't real" syndrome. Whether it is trying to explain to Johnny that he can't copy his favorite wrestling hero and body slam his little sister because in real life people get hurt, or Hannah's mom trying to explain why Cassie won't show up at her daughter's birthday party, parents of preschoolers are destined to fail if they base their strategy on trying to get their child to understand that what they see on the screen isn't real. It's not that preschoolers don't understand the difference between "real" and "pretend"; it's that they define "real" differently from adults. That definition takes two forms. The first relies on the concrete. If they can see it, or touch it, it is "real". So to a preschooler, Barney the dinosaur, who they see on TV several times a week, is "real", while their Great Aunt Zoe, who sends birthday cards from another state but never actually visits, is not "real."

The second definition has to do with emotional attachment - what adults would likely label "realistic" rather than "real". If a character's experiences ring true to a child - if they relate to the character emotionally - they will see the character as real. So rather than trying to convince a child that a dinosaur can't really talk or that Elmo only lives on screen and can't come over for a play date, it is more productive to discuss with them which of the character's experiences or feelings seem real to them. Rather than trying to convince children who are copying inappropriate behavior that their actions have consequences that media ignore, simply set boundaries. Just as toddlers learn that there are things they can do at home that they can't do at preschool or at grandma's, they can understand that some things are just for TV or the computer.

So if neither commercials nor "real vs. pretend" are appropriate starting points for an early childhood media literacy curriculum, what is? I suggest that there are three areas with which we might begin:

Identifying Storytellers

Knowing the perspective and motive of media makers is essential to being able to analyze media's messages, but preschoolers aren't developmentally capable of mastering such knowledge. What they can do, however, is answer the question: "Who is telling this 'story'?"

The answer to that question will vary according to developmental stage and literacy level. At the most basic level, preschoolers are likely to identify a character they can see or one who is the center of the action. In a television program likeTheodore Tugboat, for example, they would tend to name Theodore as the storyteller. A slightly older child might notice that the show also has an on-screen narrator who voices all the characters in the story. A six year old can understand that the narrator is the storyteller. By the time a child is eight they can begin to understand things they can't see. This ability allows them to understand that a TV show has writers and that writers are the storytellers. By middle school, children can understand that what writers write is shaped by the people who pay the bills. They should be able to name producers and sponsors as storytellers.

These stages can be applied to nearly any medium. In the case of a babysitter reading aloud a book, the youngest children will identify the babysitter as the storyteller because she is most immediate and concrete. Slightly older children might identify one of the characters in the book. Elementary school students might look on the book jacket for the names of the author and illustrator. And the most media literate students would add the publisher to the list of storytellers.

It is important to note that all these are correct. The different answers represent different levels of sophistication in understanding. In doing media literacy education with preschoolers, the idea is not necessarily to nudge them towards the next most sophisticated level of understanding. That will come naturally as their cognitive abilities develop provided they continue to ask the question. So media literacy education for preschoolers starts with getting them in the habit of asking the question, "Who is the storyteller?"

Understanding Stories

One of the most traditional ways to analyze or reflect on stories is simply to talk about them. Like adults, preschoolers make their own meaning from what they see, read, and hear, so asking them to re-tell a story is more than a way to check comprehension. What they choose to focus on tells us a lot about who they are and what is on their minds. Re-telling stories also places children in the role of storyteller, giving them a taste of making, not just consuming, media.

By asking children questions about what they see and genuinely listening to their answers we encourage the habit of thinking and talking about media. The goal is not to replace conversation with a quiz; asking preschoolers to re-tell media stories is not primarily about checking for accuracy (or more precisely, our vision of what is accurate). Rather, the purpose is to provide children with an opportunity to practice talking about what they see and hear.

Learning the Language

As authors use words, film and video makers use shots. Zooms and close-ups and fades are the ABCs of image-based media. Just like emerging print readers begin to identify letters and sight words, emerging image readers can begin to identify shots. Even preschoolers can learn that when King Friday (the reigning monarch in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood's Land of Make Believe) fills the screen we call that a close-up and when we can see the whole castle we are looking at a wide shot. They can also begin to understand perspective. If they see their favorite dragon flying in the sky and the next shot looks down at houses on the ground, they understand that the second shot is from the dragon's point of view. This can eventually help them learn to better identify who is telling the story.

Though we don't want to make every TV viewing session into a formal lesson, occasionally naming shots can help preschoolers develop a vocabulary they can use to talk about video. It can also help them understand that someone is making choices about which shots to use and give them a sense that the pictures they see are constructed.

In addition to naming shots we can help preschoolers become aware of the constructed nature of what they see by helping them notice the things in the background that make up the set. Keep crayons and paper handy to let them practice drawing their own "sets". They might draw a favorite show or something familiar like the place they sleep. In either case, adults can enhance the learning by prompting children to include details that would help a viewer know that the picture was of their bedroom and not someone else's bedroom (or that the dog in their picture was Clifford and not Blue).

Finally, the language of television includes not only pictures, but also sound. For preschoolers, this may be the easiest part of media language to understand. Asking how music makes them feel or inviting them to dance and pointing out that they move or feel differently when they hear different kinds of music, or playing sound games (listening for sound effects, listening to sounds with eyes closed and guessing what makes the sound, imitating sounds or voices, etc.) can help young viewers see that media storytellers use sound to help tell their stories and that the sounds they choose influence what we feel.

Some people will see the suggestion to include media literacy in early childhood education as anachronistic because they believe that young children should not be watching television or using computers at all. While that belief is based on genuine concern for children's well-being, it is based more on inference than actual research and it begs the pedagogical issue of how to develop literacy skills without exposing people to the materials we hope they will learn to "read."

We don't wait until children are capable of deciphering the intricacies of a Toni Morrison novel before introducing them to the alphabet. It makes no more sense to wait until children are developmentally able to fully comprehend media messages before introducing them to media literacy skills. To the contrary, if we see media literacy as vital to life in the "Digital Age," then we should begin the acquisition of that literacy as early as possible.

Faith Rogow, Ph.D, founding national president of the Alliance for a Media Literate America ( www.AMLAinfo.org), is an educational consultant specializing in children's educational media and diversity issues.

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ABC's of Media Literacy: What Can Pre-Schooolers Learn?

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Introduction Three-year-old Hannah looks up from the television and announces that she wants to invite Cassie (the youngest dragon from Sesame Workshop's cartoon, Dragon Tales) to her upcoming birthday party. Her mother, a teacher recently trained in media literacy, tries out all her best strategies to convince Hannah that Cassie isn't real, but no matter what she does, Hannah doesn't seem to understand.

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The Center on Technology and Disability (CTD) trains and supports the adults in a child's life to use technology tools to communicate and create resources for and with children with disabilities.

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speech and language assistive technology

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Center on Technology and Disability (CTD)

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A center that provides assistive technology, assistive technology devices, assistive technology tools, assistive technology apps, assistive technology for cerebral palsy, assistive technology evaluation, assistive technology software, assistive technology provider, ipad as assistive technology, speech and language assistive technology.

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Kick starting technology education in childern and their families.

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Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Children's Media

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Growing the Innovation Economy, One Young Technologist at a Time
This post was originally published at RemakeLearning.org. It appears here with permission.
There may be some light at the end of the great recession. At least that's what urbanists like Bruce Katz think. Katz is one of the economists who's been cheering on the revolutionary models he sees in cities across America, because as he sees it, the economy of the future rests on innovation:

Like all great revolutions, this one had been ignited by a spark. The Great Recession was and continues to be a shock to the American zeitgeist, a brutal wake-up call that revealed the failure of a growth model that exalted consumption over production, speculation over investment, and waste over sustainability. A new growth model and economic vision is emerging from this rubble, a next economy where we export more and waste less, innovation in what matters, produce and deploy more of what we invent, and build an economy that works for working families.

But how do we make this happen? How do we ensure that our cities are breeding grounds for young inventors? How do we make sure kids will grow up to want to lead us into a future economy-to think big, and move from consumption-based to production-based again? And what will that look like?

Shimira Williams hit the nail on the head when she told me, "I want my kids to learn to be producers, not just consumers of technology. And I wanted to teach them how to build technology and use it to extend their own interests."

Williams teaches at a home-based afterschool program called Tek Start on Pittsburgh's east end. It's not far from Google's Pittsburgh outpost, but Williams says it can seem worlds away.

Many of her students are from low-income families, which have struggled a great deal since the economic downturn. They have limited access to technology, and some of her kids, she says, see computers as little more than places on go online to "watch PBS kids."

"There is a gap in my community," she says. "People would buy computers with their income tax refund, but didn't even know how to use them. They didn't know how to access websites or use the internet. I want to attack the issues early."

I want my kids to learn to be producers, not just consumers of technology. And I wanted to teach them how to build technology and use it to extend their own interests.

And attack she does, helping students see technology as a tool to get information and to create.

Williams has been working with kids ages preschool to 13 since 2006 and in a early care center with young children before that. She grew up in this neighborhood and believes strongly in the power of technology to improve the economy in her community and to improve the lives of the students she works with.

She encourages people in the community to donate computers and sends the extras home with students. She devotes time after school for projects that allow students to experiment with the latest technology in a hands-on way-even if her limited budget means that happens on her own personal smartphone or iPad. At Tek Start students shoot and edit their own videos, take pictures, and design apps. She encourages time for tinkering, and figuring things out, so they can build skills. "I want them to ask, 'What am I doing to produce new content?' Being a producer builds self-esteem. Everyone feels better when they make something."

But Williams' students need more than just access. They need help imagining what's possible.

Often her students don't know about the global innovations that are taking place right in their backyard. "I see kids using emoticons all the time, I tell them, "Do you realize those are born and bread at CMU on the east side?' There is innovation right here."

To rectify that, Williams took a group of students on a tour of Google Pittsburgh.

"I would love kids to know that working here is a possibility." The tour, she said, took her months to schedule.

This year kids as young as kindergarten in her program have been interviewing local professionals and recording videos. Williams says she wants them to be able to imagine themselves as future scientists or engineers or developers. "Tech makes you feel good about yourself. It's an economic engine. When you produce and build and create you're most inclined to build and create and form a business. And that, for my community, is more important than anything." So far they've interviewed a medical examiner, an app developer, and a traffic engineer.

"It's a global society. We're not just competing regionally, we're competing globally. The kid in the other country is actually being a producer [of media] at the age of 4 when our kids are not producing anything 'til the age of 24."

Williams is creating her own innovation pipeline by showing her students what's possible and then helping them find the tools and build the skills to make that vision a reality. Show kids the possibilities and how to make their dreams happen, and you'll make sure Pittsburgh survives, and the nation continues to grow.

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Growing the Innovation Economy, One Young Technologist at a Time - Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Children's Media

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This post was originally published at RemakeLearning.org. It appears here with permission. There may be some light at the end of the great recession. At least that's what urbanists like Bruce Katz think. Katz is one of the economists who's been cheering on the revolutionary models he sees in cities across America, because as he sees it, the economy of...

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DR. Michael Rich aka The Mediatrician gives helpful advice to parents on tech and media at home

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DR. Michael Rich aka The Mediatrician gives helpful advice to parents on tech and media at home

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Dear Reader, Welcome to another Media Moment! This month, Sarah Gillis, the Associate Administrator at CMCH, shares how video chatting with her family helps maintain their close relationships with each other. These stories are meant to help create a village square of commiserating and co-celebrating the many ways media intersect with our lives and the...

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KIDMAP supports the creation of diverse and inclusive children's media through research, best practices, and collaboration. We are committed to putting all kids on the digital media map.

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Parental Co-Use of Media Technology with their Young Children in the USA

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Parental Co-Use of Media Technology with their Young Children in the USA

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Sabrina L. Connell, Alexis R. Lauricella & Ellen Wartella

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Project Look Sharp provides lesson plans, materials, training and support to help teachers integrate media literacy into their classroom curricula.

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Rick Fernandes, Executive Director of the Fred Rogers Center shares how he is a media mentor

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Rick Fernandes, Executive Director of the Fred Rogers Center shares how he is a media mentor

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Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Children's Media

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Am I Using Technology Too Much?

Yes, I use plenty of technology every day, and chances are, so do you. Whether or not we want to admit it, technology is embedded in our lives in every way. We use it to communicate, drive, shop, educate, and, most importantly, to connect with each other. And those of us of a certain age probably use technology way more than we ever expected we would. For me, the focus isn't on if I use it too much, but how I use it.

Many years ago while having dinner with my wife, she observed another couple at the restaurant not talking with one another. "Please let that not be us in the future," she said.

Here we are in the future, and recently at dinner she observed a couple not speaking with each other and both looking at their smartphones. I said, "Remember that couple a few years ago who didn't speak with one another? Well that's them now." It is true that it's easier to be distracted or to check on something quickly, but the fundamentals of relationships are the same. I would rather talk and laugh with my wife than look at my phone.

Does this dynamic change with children? It shouldn't. I have two daughters. Raising children in this fast-moving technology era is a challenge for many of us. Often our children know more about technology than we do. I consider myself very tech savvy, but I am surprised by how much more my 10-year-old daughter knows than me. When I talk with my kids about technology, I say that the user's manual tells us how to operate the device, but what it should do is show us how to use it.

Personally, I try to use technology in ways that connect and bring us together. How do I model this behavior? Here are a few recent examples of how I used technology to have a deeper connection with my kids.

Music: In my home we have speaker system that is attached to a music subscription service. These two systems operate on an app that basically gives me access to every piece of music ever composed. That is amazing. I could never afford to buy all those CDs. Even just a few years ago I wouldn't have been able to listen to different genres of music at the simple push of a button.

So how do I use this to connect to my kids? I ask them what their current favorite song is and play it. They tell me why they like it. Then I play my favorite song from when I was their age and share why I liked it. Over the past several months I have learned more about them through their musical taste, and they have learned more about me and my life-all through music.

One time they asked me to play an artist that I thought they'd like. We sat down on the couch, I pulled out the app, searched for the song and hit play. My daughters looked up at the speakers and their mouths fell open as Etta James belted out "At Last." They agreed she had an amazing voice and asked when I first heard her sing.

(Of course, all of this music eventually leads to some form of a dance party, but I will keep the details of my dancing skills for my family and spare you the laughter.)

Video: Speaking of dancing, my daughter once stated that she hardly ever sees boys dance, and if she had seen them, they didn't dance very well. I grabbed my tablet and searched for a clip from my youth. We sat down and I played the opening to the musical film "West Side Story." Her first comment was, "Wow, these boys can dance and they are doing it in tight pants!" Then she asked, "Is this New York City? What year? This is what it looked like when you were a kid?"

This led to a conversation about growing up in NYC in that era. Then I started asking her questions about what she noticed visually from the directing. She mentioned framing of shots and the colors that were used. The clip only lasted a few minutes, but our conversation lasted way past its conclusion.

Photos: We now live in the age of unlimited and instant photos. We can have every photo we have ever taken in our pocket. I believe I have over 70,000 photos on my phone (thanks to the cloud). People wonder when I ever look at all of them.

Here is my ritual to see them in a meaningful and fun way. Once a week, I try my best to do a date search of that month and day in my photo library. Next, I will ask my family, "What have we done on this date in the past?" The usual response is, "I don't remember." Then I show all the photos from various years that were taken on that date. It's a time capsule of my family for that specific date, and it brings back memories of where we were, why we were there and what was going on in our lives. My children love this because they see pictures of themselves when they were very young and in places they sometimes don't remember. They enjoy the stories behind the pictures.

I could go on and on about how I use technology to build deeper connections with my family. I try to instill in my kids the idea that technology will always be changing, that it is a part of our lives and that it will be even bigger in the future-and also that we must always find ways to use it to connect with each other.

I wish all technology came with a "real" user's manual that focused on human connections to help adults see the best use of the device with children (and other adults). And yes, I do have some no tech rules in my home; there are times when there should be no technology around, such as when we are eating or at bedtime. But let's not focus on technology as the source of bad relationships. Instead, let's focus on using technology to create and engage in stronger relationships.

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Am I Using Technology Too Much? - Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Children's Media

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Yes, I use plenty of technology every day, and chances are, so do you. Whether or not we want to admit it, technology is embedded in our lives in every way. We use it to communicate, drive, shop, educate, and, most importantly, to connect with each other.

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Each one of us has a unique voiceprint. Yet, until now, millions of people who rely on computerized speech to communicate have been given uniform voices. Voices that don't fit their bodies or their personalities. We wouldn't dream of fitting a little girl with the prosthetic limb of a grown man, so, why then the same prosthetic voice?

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Hear what makes Tech Goes Home Boston programs so successful

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Hear what makes Tech Goes Home Boston programs so successful

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Anne Schweiger interviews Dan Noyes and Theo Hanna from Tech Goes Home

In this episode, host Anne Schweiger interviews Dan Noyes and Theodora Higginson, Co-Directors of Tech Goes Home, a nonprofit that provides laptops and training. Through a grant from Google, Tech Goes Home is expanding into Cambridge.

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Anne Schweiger interviews Dan Noyes and Theo Hanna from Tech Goes Home In this episode, host Anne Schweiger interviews Dan Noyes and Theodora Higginson, Co-Directors of Tech Goes Home, a nonprofit that provides laptops and training. Through a grant from Google, Tech Goes Home is expanding into Cambridge.

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Listen to the Slate Placemakers Podcast with Kelly McCarthy of Tech Goes Home Chattanooga

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Listen to the Slate Placemakers Podcast with Kelly McCarthy of Tech Goes Home Chattanooga

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Rebecca Sheir: Yolander Bullard is having a breakthrough. She doesn't use the internet often. But for the first time, she's realizing how helpful it really is-she just used it to check her credit score.

Yolander Bullard: I knew you could do it online. I just never had done it because I didn't know how. But, bam! So, I'm gonna find out a whole lotta stuff now. This is gonna just blow my mind completely out. This is-oooo, I'm gonna find out about the world! This is so neat!

Sheir: Bullard is a retired teacher's aide in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she's sitting in a class for people who don't feel comfortable with computers and the internet.

Class instructor: We're going to compose an email. Your first email. To me, your instructor. So, flip to the last page of that handout you got, and it will tell you an introduction to your Gmail toolbar. Does everyone see that? Yep.

Sheir: On the surface, a tech literacy class might just seem like a feel-good community service. But it's actually addressing a massive underlying issue in Chattanooga: the gaping divide between those who use the internet, and those who don't.

I'm Rebecca Sheir. From Slate magazine, this is Placemakers: stories about the spaces we inhabit and the people who shape them.

You'll find a lot of Yolander Bullards in Chattanooga and around the United States: people who find the internet too expensive, too hard to access, and, overall, just plain intimidating. And that's become an issue that local economies have to reckon with.

As for Chattanooga's economy, for years, it was all about manufacturing. And while the city does still have some major manufacturing going on, it's trying to rebrand itself as a destination for tech companies. But as producer Mary Helen Montgomery tells us, the more tech-focused the city becomes, the more stark the divide is between the tech-savvy, and those left behind.

Mary Helen Montgomery: On the way into Chattanooga, there's a billboard on the interstate that says, "You've Arrived! Gig City." It's referring to the fast internet speed available here. Drive downtown, and there are banners on the street marking the city's so-called Innovation District. There are startup incubators-Co.Lab, the Business Development Center, and Lamp Post Group. And there are regular contests for the best new tech ideas. The people of Chattanooga hope that technology will lead the city to a bright future. But Kelly McCarthy doesn't see everyone getting a piece of that, the way things are going.

Kelly McCarthy: The internet and technology is not a leveler, at the moment. In its ideal-est form it is, but it's not in reality. So I'm trying in my very small way to help make that a reality.

Montgomery: McCarthy runs Tech Goes Home, a digital literacy program. She and her team are trying to help low-income students who struggle with schoolwork that requires online research, and adults who find it hard to function in a world that's more dependent on the internet every day. The city of Chattanooga is the main funder for the program. This field McCarthy's working in-digital equity-is a combination of all the things she's passionate about: education. Technology. And social justice. When McCarthy was a teenager and young adult, she worked as a tutor.

McCarthy: And working with kids, and working with families of really diverse backgrounds, I think I started to realize that people are faced with very like concrete, real-world, different hurdles.

Montgomery: After college in Florida, McCarthy headed north-to Yale divinity school. She studied liberation theology-a movement in which the Bible is interpreted through the eyes of the poor. And she says she left divinity school with a different understanding of the world. McCarthy then took that understanding to technology. After grad school, McCarthy and her husband ran a web development firm that became known for focusing on accessibility.

McCarthy: Accessibility is about making it so that everyone can access the web. And that's folks who may have visual impairment or who have lost their hearing or have some sort of color blindness. I came to really appreciate what we did, and I couldn't ever see working in any other way. To me, it's like, why would you build something that not everybody can actually access. It's counter intuitive.

Montgomery: Now, as the program director at Tech Goes Home, McCarthy is trying to make sure everyone in Chattanooga-not just people with resources-can access the internet and know how to use it.

McCarthy: You know, the folks that are most affected by the sort of digital divide, which is pretty much who we work with primarily, are folks that are lower income, under $30,000 a year per household. Folks who are unemployed or underemployed. Those who may not speak English as their primary language. Those who have disabilities or who have family with disabilities. Folks who live in rural communities, those who are over 65. African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected. That's a very large portion of Hamilton County.

Montgomery: Tech Goes Home is modeled after a program by the same name in Boston. This is how it works: students pay fifty dollars to attend the class. And, if they complete the 15-hour course, they get to take home a brand-new laptop. But for McCarthy, learning these skills isn't just about improving individual lives. She thinks the health of the whole city is at stake. Chattanooga is one of the worst cities in the country for economic mobility. And the poverty rate here has been steadily growing for the last 15 years.

Montgomery: How do you think a city would be different-or how do you think Chattanooga would be different-if every single person was connected to the internet and had a basic level of tech literacy?

McCarthy: Honestly, I think our unemployment rate would be staggeringly low. I think our educational attainment would be much higher. There would be a leveling, to some extent, of the playing field. Which, you know, whether that would mean, OK everybody makes more money, or everybody moves out of public housing to a better situation. I don't know necessarily that would translate, but I do think there would be at least more opportunities for Chattanoogans, for those who really want to take them.

Montgomery: It sounds like you think it would be a big difference.

McCarthy: I mean, I think it would. We're talking about so many generational issues and factors of living situations and poverty that, like, you can't possibly expect people to improve their lives, or to be even anywhere near their potential for themselves or their families if they're sort of stuck, kind of in the Dark Ages, without the ability to do these things.

Montgomery: But even if everyone knew how to use a computer, a lot of people still couldn't access the internet easily.

McCarthy: In Chattanooga-again, it's really hard to estimate, but there are estimates-in some of our areas that are most underserved, in our urban core, the connectivity rates are under 20 percent.

Montgomery: That means that in some neighborhoods, only 1 in 5 homes has an internet connection. Paul Stovall hasn't had internet for years.

Paul Stovall: So for a few years, I was a technophobe. I had technophobia. I would not mess with a computer. I didn't understand them. I didn't know how to make them function right.

Montgomery: Stovall is one of McCarthy's students. He lives on the first floor of an apartment complex. It truly is the home of a technophobe. There are VHS tapes piled high and a desk with a monitor and keyboard-but no computer. The computer is with Stovall's pastor, who's trying to update it.

Stovall: But it's an older system. It's got Windows 98!

Montgomery: Stovall used to have an internet connection, but he can't justify the cost anymore. He's 65 years old and on a fixed income. After a decade on disability, Stovall has just started looking for a job. He has a college degree and used to work as a counselor for people with mental disabilities or addictions. And job searching has made him realize that he has to be more comfortable using the internet.

Stovall: It's kind of humbling to me because at one time I just said, Oh fooey! I don't need it. I've had to wake up and smell the coffee. This is the way of the world. So here I am.

Montgomery: He's in the middle of a bind. Stovall has been waiting on extra income to get his internet connection back. But, without a connection at home, it's going to be more difficult to get a job.

Comcast and AT&T are widely available in Chattanooga. And there's another option-a municipal network, run through the city's electric power board. The cheapest option is about $60 a month. There's also a discounted service for poor families with children. It's close to $30 a month, though, which is still too much for a lot of families.

In the city's poorest ZIP codes, only 1 in 5 households subscribe to the public network. But, in the wealthiest ZIP codes, more than three times that many are connected. More people might be able to afford municipal broadband if they dropped the price, but there's a law in Tennessee that says a public network can't undercut the price that private companies charge. That's why this public network isn't allowed to subsidize the cost of internet for its low-income users. So, while the municipal broadband is faster than what the private companies offer, it isn't cheaper.

Sheir: After the break, we'll hear more about what the Internet means for people accessing it for the first time, and how important it's becoming for cities and communities around the country. Plus, I'll talk with someone who's behind the big, national plan for making internet access affordable and universal by the year 2020

Sheir: From Slate magazine, it's Placemakers. I'm Rebecca Sheir. If you're listening to this podcast right now, chances are you're pretty internet-savvy. Once you're done with this, maybe you'll open a browser window and check the weather forecast, or pay your electric bill. Perhaps you'll dash off a few emails, or RSVP to yet another e-vite. And being this connected-this plugged-in-is probably a given, right? It's a part of daily life. Using the internet is like using any other utility. But it's not like that for everybody.

Before the break, we were hanging out in Chattanooga, where we met some folks who saw the internet as something distant, unattainable, even intimidating. And they were being given a chance to get more comfortable with technology, and maybe even join their city's booming Internet economy. Mary Helen Montgomery picks up our story.

Montgomery: Paul Stovall wanted in from the moment he first heard about the classes at Tech Goes Home.

Stovall: I said, well, woo. Grab my saddle let me get on this pony, I'm ready to go!

Montgomery: Did it seem like something you had been waiting for?

Stovall: Yeah. It seemed like, this is an answer to a prayer. It's an answer to a dream. Let me get rolling with this, and other blessings will fall in line. And so, Tech Goes Home is a part of my blessing that God has given me, so I'm very grateful.

Montgomery: Chattanooga is the kind of place where people can view a basic technology class in terms of prayer. And maybe it does take a certain kind of faith, to face this problem. There are huge differences in the lives of those who have internet access and those who don't. The task of bringing everyone to the same level-it's daunting. You have to believe progress is possible. Kelly McCarthy does.

McCarthy: I still get up every day saying, "OK, one more person in a class who knows how to do this, who then goes home to their family or their grandmother, or their aunt, or their uncle, or their kids. And they can teach someone something else." Like, we're moving the needle that much further.

Montgomery: Since McCarthy's program started in early 2015, more than one thousand people have graduated. Almost three-quarters of the graduates say they have pursued more training online. But there's still the vexing issue of affordability. If people like Paul Stovall can't afford an Internet connection at home, that makes a lot of McCarthy's work less effective.

McCarthy: There are so many competing factions and it always seems to get more and more complex as we go on. It's a hard-I try to stay out of the politics of all that.

Montgomery: Tech Goes Home does help students learn about options available that are cheaper than the public network. AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, and T-Mobile, all offer a connection for about $10 a month to low-income people. That's cheaper than the low-income rate on the municipal broadband. But the commercial telecom options may be slow or have data limits. And, their lowest rates aren't guaranteed to last.

Still, McCarthy continues to do what she can for people who don't use the Internet regularly. Their world is becoming more and more difficult to navigate. They can no longer sign up for public housing with pen and paper. They often can't apply for jobs. McCarthy knows the easy thing for Chattanooga to do is to move on without them. But she doesn't want to let Chattanooga do the easy thing.

McCarthy: On a very good day, I will say, "Yes! We can absolutely make it so that everyone knows how to do this. They have a computer. They have access."

Montgomery: All they need is a way to afford it and the knowledge to use it.

Sheir: Chattanooga's is among roughly 400 publicly run networks in the United States, and compared with all of them, it's actually one of the biggest and fastest. That's thanks to a federal stimulus grant the city received in 2010, for more than $100 million.

But as we just heard, for a large chunk of residents, this network still isn't affordable, and these individuals may have to turn to commercial providers instead. To get some more insight about community networks, and their relationship with big telecoms, I reached out to Blair Levin. He served as chief of staff to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and went on to develop the National Broadband Plan: That's this blueprint for achieving universal, affordable internet access by the year 2020. Now he runs something called Gig U, which focuses on expanding high-speed networks.

When we met, I began by asking him: How do these community networks, such as Chattanooga's, get set up in the first place?

Levin: A Chattanooga is something of a unique situation in which they built their network on top of their utility's provider. That definitely improves the economics. Huntsville, Alabama, is doing the same thing, except there instead of offering the service themselves, they struck a deal with Google, so Google will offer the service on the Huntsville fiber. Eventually they will offer that same deal to other ISPs, internet service providers. That's a different model for how you could do it. Most of what people think of municipal broadband services were really done in smaller communities in rural America where you had a community that said, "We don't have a cable operator. Our local telephone company is not upgrading their network. We're not a priority for them."

If we want to be part of the global information economy, if we want young people to want to live here, if we want to be able to do certain things, either we can convince the telco to upgrade or we're going to have to do it ourselves.

Sheir: You just touched on something I wanted to ask you about. What kind of boost do cities get, do towns get from setting up this kind of amenity?

Levin: Well, look, in the last large cities, you generally have a telephone provider and you have a cable provider. There's generally speaking access everywhere. The quality of that access, the price of that access, one can debate all that. When there is an upgrade, there's usually a significant boost. For example, there's a lot of studies that show in Chattanooga, in Kansas City, and other cities that have been able to move from what we might think of as today's internet to a future proof internet of a gigabyte where you have a lot of economic activity, a lot of new jobs, a lot of entrepreneurs move there. There are a lot of studies that show if you have a house that's connected to fiber and offers a gigabyte, it's worth about $5,000 more than a similar situated house that doesn't have such access. If you have an apartment building that has access to the higher speeds, you can charge higher rent because consumers really value that.

In fact, if you look at the patterns of where people live and where the jobs are, it's become even more true that cities offer the most attractive places to live. If you're in rural America, the sense of isolation without internet is even greater. For some communities, it's definitely a benefit. For other communities, it's not a luxury. It's a must have if they want to stay part of modern society.

Sheir: A lot of big telecom companies aren't exactly fans of these city-run networks.

Levin: Well, none of the telephone networks are fans of the municipally run networks. Some of their arguments in my opinion have some validity and some of their arguments have no validity. It's always like that in a policy process.

Sheir: Let's start with the ones that you think do have validity.

Levin: Well, look, I always think the first thing I would say is whenever government spends money to be in a market where there is currently a lot of private investment, they should ask the question. I don't take the position that some do which is government should never do that if we didn't. If you take that position, you should would say government shouldn't be in the education business. There should be no University of California. After all, there's Stanford. I think we should agree that there are situations where government should invest even if there is private investment. Furthermore, I led the effort that resulted in the national broadband plan.

When we were looking at the numbers in 2009, it was very clear that certain communities wouldn't get this without the government itself doing it and that's where you see a lot of rural communities. On the other hand, when you get to big cities, I think that there are alternatives. Furthermore, I don't believe any large city could attract the technical talent. I don't believe the large cities can raise the risk capital. There's a lot of risk capital which is very different than what the kind of capital they raised for streets and schools, things like that. Also it's a real scale business. There's a reason why the companies that do best have national footprints. Those are all difficult problems particularly in large cities.

Sheir: This is something you briefly mentioned earlier, but I want you to expand on it. Some people argue that these days internet access should be more like a utility, not so much a luxury, it's that important. Where do you come down on that question?

Levin: Well, I think it is critical that the United States government have a policy to get affordable, abundant bandwidth everywhere. I think it's critical that we have a policy that gets everybody on. I think it's critical that we have a series of policies to use that platform to better deliver public goods and services. Those who argue for utility are making my argument an additional argument. The additional argument that they're making is and therefore the government itself should be the provider of the service.

Sheir: Blair Levin suggests that if we could start from scratch in the United States, the government should lay fiber everywhere, just like streets, and make it completely open-access.

But of course it's far too late for that. So for now, the local municipalities and the big telecoms? They'll just have to duke it out.

Our story from Chattanooga today was reported by Mary Helen Montgomery.Placemakers is a production of Slate magazine and is produced by Mia Lobel, Dianna Douglas, and Michael Vuolo, and edited by Julia Barton. Our researcher is Matthew Schwartz. Eric Shimelonis does our mixing and musical scoring. Our theme was composed by Robin Hilton. Steve Lickteig is our executive producer. I'm Rebecca Sheir.

For more information about today's show and other episodes of Placemakers, go to Slate.com/placemakers. You can drop us a line at placemakers@slate.com. You can follow us on Twitter; our handle is@slateplacemaker. And if you like what you're hearing, please give us a review or rating on iTunes. It really does help.

Our Placemakers journey continues for a few more months. We'll be heading all over the United States, where we'll do some underground squatting in Oakland, California:

Man: A lot of people thought that what I was trying to do was totally crazy.

Sheir: We'll meet refugee resettlers in Missoula, Montana:

Woman: People are just scared. They're scared of the unknown.

Sheir: And we'll hear from the guy who set out to make the tiny hamlet of Greensburg, Kansas, the greenest town in the nation.

Man: There's still people today probably will tell ya: "Go fast, build it quick, don't mess with building permits, don't mess with green. Just get it built up and get your life back normal." Well, guess what? Life was never gonna be normal again.

Sheir: And that's just a taste of what we have in store. Now, to bring you these stories, to introduce you to these placemakers, it takes a whole lot of, love, first of all. And resources.

As you know Placemakers is made possible by J-P-Morgan-Chase, and they have put together three stories focusing on what local nonprofit partners are doing to shape towns and cities. Next week they'll present the first of those stories... from Motor City itself: Detroit, Michigan.

After that, we'll be back with a brand new episode of our own. So stay tuned!

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Rebecca Sheir: Yolander Bullard is having a breakthrough. She doesn't use the internet often. But for the first time, she's realizing how helpful it really is-she just used it to check her credit score. Yolander Bullard: I knew you could do it online. I just never had done it because I didn't know how.

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The Learning Experiences of Youth Online Information Brokers

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The Learning Experiences of Youth Online Information Brokers

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Jason C. Yip, Carmen Gonzalez, University of Washington – Seattle, Vikki Katz, Rutgers University

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Dr. Brigid Barron's Parents as Learning Partners in the Development of Technological Fluency

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Dr. Brigid Barron's Parents as Learning Partners in the Development of Technological Fluency

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David Kleeman shares research from Dubit on play and creativity in children's tablet use and the role of adults in this Huffington Post article.

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We often get mired in questions of whether media use is OK for children, long after family patterns and habits have been established. At some point, it makes sense to shift focus and resources to how to make media beneficial for young people -- to research and curate best practices, so that content creators have help in aligning their ideas and designs with child development, how kids play and learn, and what engages and entertains them.

" Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-Schoolers' Use of Apps," conducted by Dubit and the University of Sheffield, with other partners including CBeebies, the University of Edinburgh, Monteney Primary School and Foundling Bird, is just such a study. Dubit's ongoing trend research has shown a steady rise in preschoolers' use of tablets, for a variety of purposes: apps for play, creativity and early learning; watching videos; sharing e-books with caregivers; communication with distant family; and more.

"Whether" was beyond question; so we looked at "how," "when" and "why."

"Exploring Play and Creativity" used a mix of research methods - a 2000-person survey, home visits with play-testing and interviews, observation of children in the target age, and an analysis of the features and affordances of pre-school apps.

What we found revealed fascinating details about how physical and cognitive development tracks alongside capability for using touchscreens, and how kids and families organize their days to reflect the ebbs and flows of a day's activities and emotions. Each of these discoveries offers critical insights for anyone making tablet games, apps or ebooks for young children, and can be informative even to those making media for other platforms or physical products.
Development and Tablet Facility Align
Navigating on a tablet requires a set of unique skills that weren't necessarily part of children's play prior to the touchscreen. Few toys of prior eras called for swiping, tapping, dragging or pinching. Still, few adults watching toddlers on tablets fail to be boggled by their facility.

Our study found a consistent pattern in little children's learning of a tablet's operating features. Swiping - to move a scene or turn a page - is reliably among the first gestures learned, and more than half the children in our research could do so on their own before age two. Fortunately for parents, skills like following the steps to find and purchase an app takes significantly longer to learn.

A contemporaneous study from Cork University Hospital found similar results to ours, and even raised the prospect that, someday, these emerging capabilities could be used as developmental indicators.
Emotional Scheduling
Even though today's children are mostly freed from the tyranny of scheduled media (you must watch this at 3 pm or miss it), our study revealed that they practice something we call "emotional scheduling."

In other words, the rhythms of family life contribute strongly to patterns of children's media habits. Weekday technology use spikes in the afternoon, after preschool, though for the littlest children it's a little flatter across the day. Weekend use is more steady and similar across ages. Even the room in which play takes place is consistent - mornings in the kitchen at breakfast, in the living room at midday and the bedroom in the evening.

Parents reported making most of the decisions when to allow play, though kids played alone for the most part (with parental or sibling co-play in particular situations). A number of factors can influence "emotional scheduling" - how much time is available, whether the goal is to "ramp up" or "wind down," what else is happening in the home, and more.

This information is just the tip of the study, and we've learned more since. The "Play and Creativity" research findings and the thinking behind them are baked into the Dubit creative development and digital building process. In a crowded marketplace, there's no long a question of whether young children will be playing with tablets, but understanding how, when and why can make the difference between a kid and parent favorite and one that never breaks through.

Want more information on this or other Dubit research and how it can shape strategy? Follow us on Medium, subscribe to our newsletters, or contact Stephanie Whitley.

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Exploring Play And Creativity in Children's Tablet Use

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We often get mired in questions of whether media use is OK for children, long after family patterns and habits have been established. At some point, it makes sense to shift focus and resources to how to make media beneficial for young people -- to research and curate best practices, so that content creators have help in aligning their ideas and designs with child development, how kids play and learn, and what engages and entertains them.

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Carrying Mr. Rogers Message Forward in the Digital Age

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Carrying Mr. Rogers Message Forward in the Digital Age

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Highlights of our latest report summarizing children's media and tech research since 2011 from TEC Center and Fred Rogers Center Early Career research Fellow, Dr. Katie Paciga.

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Consejos sobre medios y tecnología para tu familia | Common Sense Media

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Videos, artículos y consejos para que navegues el mundo digital con tu familia de manera segura, balanceada y responsable.

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The Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center at Erikson Institute, in partnership with The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), is hosting a one-day pre-conference symposium, Media Literacy in Early Childhood: A Critical Conversation on June 26, 2017, prior to NAMLE's 2017 conference. The day will focus on why media literacy is a critical habit of mind and the set of skills for young children growing in the digital age.

Guided by the TEC Center's director, Chip Donohue, Ph.D., and associate director, Tamara Kaldor, the symposium will include an engaging mix of short talks, interactive panels, group discussions, working groups, critique and reflection, and a bit of fun. Space is limited, and the number of presenters is being kept small to ensure opportunities for dialog, critical thinking, information sharing, idea exchanges, the highlighting of success stories, and problem-solving. The goal is to produce actionable steps for expanding the conversation and extending our impact and influence beyond the day. Because the symposium is organized as a group conversation, it is critical for all attendees to review materials and resources beforehand and be active participants during the event and in the long term. Please keep scrolling to see the agenda and our speaker's bios. Email us for more information on how to be a part of this important conversation.

8:30-9:00 Registration and Breakfast

9:00-9:25 Welcome to Erikson Institute

Geoff Nagle, Ph.D., Erikson Institute
Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, Tony Streit, Tamara Kaldor, Erikson Institute

9:25-10:00 What is Media Literacy in Early Childhood: A Conversation with Children

David Kleeman, Dubit
Mari Copeny,@LittleMissFlint

10:00-10:30 Why is Media Literacy Important in Early Childhood?

Facilitator: Chip Donohue, Ph.D., Erikson Institute
Claudia Haines, Homer Public Library
Brigid Barron, Ph.D., Stanford University
Dan Noyes, Tech Goes Home
Sabrina Burroughs, Eagle Academy Public Charter School

10:30-10:45 Coffee Break

10:45-11:45 Working Groups: 5 Essential Skills for Media Literacy

Tamara Kaldor
Working Group Leaders
Parents and Families: Maria Alvarez, Common Sense Media
Informal Learning: Jennifer Farrington, Association of Children's Museum and Chicago Children's Museum
Media Creators: Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D., Children's Technology Review
Policy: Michael Levine, Ph.D., Joan Ganz Cooney Center
Educators: Cyndy Scheibe, Ph.D., Project Look Sharp
Teacher Educators: Ed Greene, Ph.D., HITN
Research: Ellen Wartella, Ph.D., Northwestern University

11:45-12:00 Report Back

Tamara Kaldor
Sherri Hope Culver, NAMLE and Temple University

12:00-1:00 LUNCH

1:00-1:30 Reflections and Visions

Faith Rogow, Ph.D, Insighters Education of Consulting

1:30-2:15 Media Literacy in the Community and at Home: How do we empower children and their parents to tell their story?

Facilitator: Rick Fernandes, Fred Rogers Center
Jim Gray, Ed.D., Sesame Workshop
Michael Rich, MD, Center on Media and Child Health
Shimira Williams, TEKStart and #DiversityInApps
Kara Flack, VocalId and CTD

2:15-2:30 Coffee Break

2:30-3:15 Working Groups: Teaching 5 Essential Skills to Media Mentors
Working Group Leaders
Parents and Families: Maria Alvarez, Common Sense Media Informal Learning: Jennifer Farrington, Association of Children's Museum and Chicago Children's Museum
Media Creators:Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D., Children's Technology Review Michael Levine, Ph.D., Joan Ganz Cooney Center Cyndy Scheibe, Ph.D., Project Look Sharp
Teacher Educators:Ed Greene, Ph.D., HITNEllen Wartella, Ph.D., Northwestern University

3:15-3:30 Report Back

Tamara Kaldor
Lisa Guernsey, New America

3:30-4:00 Wrap-up and Next Action Steps

Chip Donohue, Ph.D.
Tamara Kaldor

This agenda is for Media Literacy in Early Childhood: A Critical Conversation on June 26, 2017 at Erikson Institute with The Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center, in partnership with The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE). The times, content, and speakers are tentative and subject to change.

We encourage you to join us for a reception with NAMLE afterwards.

5:00 Registration opens for Reception and Screening

Location: Rudolph Ganz Memorial Hall, Roosevelt University, 430 S Michigan Ave Chicago, IL 60605

5:30-6:30 Opening Reception - Appetizers & Drinks Provided

6:30-8:30 From the Screen to the Streets: Media Makers & Democracy

A screening of work by artists and filmmakers who use media to advocate for civic participation and social action. Participants include: Participant Media, Vulcan Productions, Kartemquin Films, ITVS, The Representation Project and Free Spirit Media.

Speakers

Maria Alvarez

Maria Alvarez is the Director of Latino Content & Outreach at Common Sense Media. Her Latino-focused parent advice has been featured on ¡Despierta América!, Noticias Telemundo, and CNN en Español and published in La Opinión, El Mensajero, and La Raza, among many other outlets. She has produced dozens of articles and features on commonsensemedia.org/latino that provide Latino parents with simple, actionable advice to help them learn how to choose and use media and technology wisely. Prior to working at Common Sense, Maria was a television executive producer and reporter in Venezuela, Honduras, and Chile for CNN en Español, Univision, Telemundo, and the Associated Press.

Brigid Barron, Ph.D.

Brigid Barron, Ph.D., is a Professor of Education and the Learning Sciences at Stanford's Graduate School of Education. Her research investigates how digital technologies can serve as catalysts for collaborative learning at home, school, and in the community with the goal of creating more equitable opportunities for the development of expertise and interest-driven learning. Current projects use a biographical unit of analyses to articulate relationships between the development of interests, learner pathways to expertise, personal social networks, and designed settings for learning. She is founder of The YouthLAB at Stanford, and a co-lead of the TELOS Initiative (Technology for Equity in Learning Opportunities).

Warren Buckleneiter, Ph.D.

Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D., is the founding editor of Children's Technology Review ( www.childrenstech.com). He speaks at education and library conferences, and contributes content books and publications, including a decade of children's tech coverage for the New York Times. He holds a doctorate in educational psychology from Michigan State University. He coordinates the KAPi prize at CES and the BolognaRagazzi Digital Prize at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. In 2000, he started Dust or Magic (www.dustormagic.com) and the Mediatech Foundation (www.mediatech.org), a non-profit community technology center in his town's library where he serves as a Trustee.

Sabrina Burroughs

Sabrina Burroughs is an early childhood educator at Eagle Academy Public School located in Washington D.C. Sabrina holds a Master's degree in Education with a focus on Curriculum and Instruction, as well as an undergraduate degree in Computer Information Systems. She has recently completed her first year as a TEC Mentor through Erikson Institute. As a mentor, she provides direct support to students and teachers using technology, while providing learning opportunities in the both in classroom and in professional learning communities. This technology effort incorporates across platforms, genres and subject matter with direct links to the International Society for Technology in Education.

Mari Copeny

Mari Copeny, better known as Little Miss Flint, is a Flint, MI native, young activist, and Youth Ambassador for the Women's March. Last year, she convinced former President Barak Obama to visit her hometown, Flint, MI. Mari uses social media to raise awareness about the Flint Water Crisis and many other social justice issues.

Chip Donohue, Ph.D.

Chip Donohue, Ph.D., is the Director of the Technology in Early Childhood Center at Erikson where he works to empower early childhood educators to make informed decisions about the appropriate and intentional use of technology with young children. He is also the Chip is a Senior Fellow of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College, where he co-chaired the working group that revised the 2012 NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center Joint Position Statement on Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs serving children from Birth through Age 8.

Jennifer Farrington

Jennifer Farrington is the President and CEO of Chicago Children's Museum. Farrington and her staff reach more than 400,000 children annually through a variety of exhibits, programs, and partnerships. Farrington has positioned the museum as a national leader in child development and play-based learning, and as a fierce advocate for all children to have access to high quality museum experiences. Farrington is the current Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Children's Museums, as well as a Board member of Illinois Action for Children, a Board member of the Lutz Family Center, and an Advisory Board member of After School Matters.

Rick Fernandes

Rick Fernandes is the Executive Director of the Fred Rogers Center, where he is responsible for strategic partnerships, program development, and outreach and communications. He has been involved in children's television for 30 years where he has worked on shows including Blue's Room, Between the Lions, Out of the Box, Bear in the Big Blue House, and Reading Rainbow. Rick's achievements include 11 Emmy nominations covering five different children's series for PBS, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, and one Emmy win for directing Disney Channel's Bear in the Big Blue House.

Kara Flack

Kara Flack consults as an Assistive Technology and Early Childhood Specialist and serves on the faculty board for the Center on Technology and Disability. Kara is an advocate for parents to promote the use of Assistive Technology as early as possible. She is currently working on the "Let's Participate" pilot project being implemented in Massachusetts. The project supports Early Intervention service providers in the selection and use of Assistive Technology and including AT as part of a child's IFSP. Kara also heads customer acquisition and product awareness efforts at VocaliD.

Jim Gray, Ed.D.

Jim Gray, Ed.D., is the Vice President of Learning Design at Sesame Workshop, where he is responsible for the educational quality of digital interactive media. Dr. Gray was involved in the evaluation and learning design of mobile apps, and provided consulting services for educational media companies like DreamBox Learning, Toca Boca, StoryBots, Kidaptive, and Disney Imagicademy. Dr. Gray is a thought leader in the field of kids' media, with invited presentations and publication to general and industry audiences such as Sandbox Summit, Dust or Magic Institute, World Congress of Play. Dr. Gray holds a Doctorate of Education from Harvard University.

Ed Greene, Ph.D.

Ed Greene, Ph.D., serves as the project's Senior Director for Educational Outreach and Partnerships at the Hispanic Information Television Network (HITN), facilitating communication, capacity building, and strategic approaches to program implementation. Over his forty- year career, Dr. Greene has worked directly with infants, toddlers, preschool children, adolescents, and families, as well as in a variety of roles and capacities in the philanthropic, private, the public sectors and higher education. Dr. Greene holds a Ph.D. in Elementary and Early Childhood Education at Indiana State University.

Lisa Guernsey

Lisa Guernsey is deputy director of the Education Policy program and director of the Learning Technologies Project at New America. She leads teams of writers and analysts to tell stories, translate research, examine policies, and generate ideas for new approaches to help disadvantaged students succeed. Prior to New America, Guernsey worked as a staff writer at The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She is co-author with Michael H. Levine of Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens (Jossey-Bass, 2015) and author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media - From Baby Videos to Educational Software - Affects Your Young Child (Basic Books, 2012).

Claudia Haines

Claudia Haines is a Youth Services Librarian at Homer Public Library in Alaska, where she leads dynamic storytimes, hosts innovative, out-of-school learning programs, and gets great media of all kinds into the hands of kids and teens. Claudia also trains other librarians as media mentors and serves on both local and national communities that support families and literacy, including the 2018 Caldecott Award Selection Committee. She is the co-author of ALSC's white paper on media mentorship and the book, Becoming a Media Mentor: Working with Children and Families (ALA Editions, 2016).

Sherri Hope Culver

Sherri Hope Culver serves as Director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy (CMIL) at Temple University where she is an Associate Professor in the Klein College of Media and Communication. Sherri is a 3-term past president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) and currently serves on the board of directors. She regularly consults with children's media companies, including Sprout, YouTube Kids, WGBH and Nickelodeon. Sherri worked in the media business as a producer and public television executive for over 25 years.

Tamara Kaldor

Tamara Kaldor is the Associate Director of the Technology in Early Childhood Center at Erikson Institute, where she empowers early childhood educators to make informed decisions about the appropriate use of technology with children from birth to age 8. Tamara is a child development expert with over a decade of experience teaching and consulting with parents, educators, and leading international organizations to integrate technology to support the social-emotional and learning needs for ALL children. Tamara has collaborated with such organizations as UNICEF, UNESCO, International Society for Technology and Education (ISTE), NAEYC, the Interdisciplinary Council on Development and Learning (ICDL), and Common Sense Media.

David Kleeman

David Kleeman is Senior Vice President of Global Trends for Dubit, a strategy and research consultancy and digital studio based in Leeds, England. David is advisory board chair to the international children's TV festival (Prix Jeunesse) and a board member of the National Association for Media Literacy Education and the Children's Media Association. He is a past Governor of the Television Academy, a 2013 Senior Fellow of the Fred Rogers Center and received the 2014 "Pioneer" Award from Kids @ Play Interactive. For 25 years, he was President of the American Center for Children and Media, a creative professional development center. He has given conference talks or seminars on six continents. He writes extensively for trade and general press, including frequent commentaries for the Huffington Post and Kidscreen.

Michael Levine, Ph.D.

Michael Levine, Ph.D., is the founding executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Dr. Levine also serves on the executive team at Sesame Workshop where he focuses on educational impact and philanthropic partnerships for the global non-profit. Dr. Levine is a Pahara-Aspen Education Reform Fellow and a frequent adviser to the White House and the U.S. Department of Education. His new book, co-authored with Lisa Guernsey, is Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens. He received his Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University.

Dan Noyes

Dan Noyes is the Co-CEO and Chief Wrangler at Tech Goes Home, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower vulnerable communities to access and use digital tools to overcome barriers and advance their lives. Dan has been involved with TGH since 2002 and on staff since the summer of 2010. After spending several years as a Legislative Aide to a U.S. Congressman in Washington DC, he returned to Boston as the Technology Director at Fenway High School. In 2006, he was hired by the Lilla G. Fredrick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester to help implement the largest middle school 1:1 laptop initiative in New England.

Michael Rich, MD

Michael Rich, MD, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and practices Adolescent Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. He is the Founder and Director of the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH) as well as a pediatrician, researcher, father, and media aficionado. As The Mediatrician®, Dr. Rich offers research-based answers parents', teachers', and clinicians' questions about children's media use and implications for their health and development. Dr. Rich received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Faith Rogow, Ph.D.

Faith Rogow, Ph.D., was the founding president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), a founding advisor of Project Look Sharp, and a founding editorial board member of the Journal for Media Literacy Education. In 1996, she created Insighters Educational Consulting to "help people learn from media and one another." She has taught thousands of educators, child care professionals, media professionals, and parents to understand and harness the power of media. She has created educational outreach materials for projects ranging from Sesame Street and Sid the Science Kid to hundreds of independent films. She received her Ph.D. in History from Binghamton University.

Cyndy Scheibe, Ph.D.

Cyndy Scheibe, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of Project Look Sharp, a media literacy initiative that provides support, materials and training for the integration of media literacy across curriculum in K-12 and post-secondary education. She is a professor at Ithaca College, where she's been teaching since 1986. Dr. Scheibe was a founding board member of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. She, along with Dr. John Condry established the Center for Research on the Effects of Television (CRETV) in 1983. The CRETV archive is one of the largest archives of television content in the U.S.

Ellen Wartella, Ph.D.

Ellen Wartella, Ph.D., is the Sheik harmad bni Khalifa Al-thani Professor of Communication and Director of the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University. Dr. Wartella currently serves on the Board of the World Summit Foundation, The Public Good Projects, and the Council on Contemporary Families. She is a Trustee of Sesame Workshop and serves on the PBS Kids Advisory Board. She is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Dr. Wartella holds her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota.

Shimira Williams

Shimira Williams is an Integration Specialist at TEKStart and a Digital Strategist at Urban Innocation21, where she adapts and enhances technical processes in organizations' and entrepreneurs' operations. She creates and delivers professional development to early child care providers on integrating technology into their learning environments. In August 2015, Shimira was named the first-Pittsburgh based Community Fellow at The Fred Rogers Center. Previously, Shimira was employed as a Database Analyst in the financial sector and Chief Financial Officer for a local development firm.
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Media Literacy in Early Childhood: A Critical Conversation

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The Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center at Erikson Institute, in partnership with The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), is hosting a one-day pre-conference symposium, Media Literacy in Early Childhood: A Critical Conversation on June 26, 2017, prior to NAMLE's 2017 conference.

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Introducing Early Learners to Technology with Social Demonstration - Digital Promise Research Map

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Dr. Rachel Barr and Dr. Laura Zimmermann discuss the importance of social scaffolding for introducing early learners to new technology and media.

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Watch what Mari Copeny aka Little Miss Flinthas been up to lately...

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Watch what Mari Copeny aka Little Miss Flinthas been up to lately...

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Little Miss Flint Has a VERY Important Message for Donald Trump

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We went to the Women's March with Little Miss Flint where she marched for her community and all affected by the Flint Water Crisis.

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Watch teachers talk about the TEC Center's TEC Mentors program

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Watch teachers talk about the TEC Center's TEC Mentors program

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TEC Mentors Professional Development Program

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Learn how our TEC Mentors professional development program at the TEC Center at Erikson Institute has helped three teachers find the confidence and right approach to integrating technology into their early childhood classrooms.

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What should I read first so I am prepared to fully participate in the day's conversations?

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What should I read first so I am prepared to fully participate in the day's conversations?

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Start by reading Faith Rogow's chapter in Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years: Tools for Teaching and Learning, edited by TEC Center's director, Chip Donohue. Just click on the image below!

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Free Library Hot Spots: Supporting Broadband Adoption in Philadelphia’s Low-Income Communities

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Free Library Hot Spots: Supporting Broadband Adoption in Philadelphia’s Low-Income Communities

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COLIN RHINESMITH
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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For many years concerns about "digital divides" centered primarily on whether people had access to digital technologies. Now, those worried about these issues also focus on the degree to which people succeed or struggle when they use technology to try to navigate their environments, solve problems, and make decisions. A recent Pew Research Center report showed that adoption of technology for adult learning in both personal and job-related activities varies by people's socio-economic status, their race and ethnicity, and their level of access to home broadband and smartphones. Another report showed that some users are unable to make the internet and mobile devices function adequately for key activities such as looking for jobs.

In this report, we use newly released Pew Research Center survey findings to address a related issue: digital readiness. The new analysis explores the attitudes and behaviors that underpin people's preparedness and comfort in using digital tools for learning as we measured it in a survey about people's activities for personal learning.

Specifically, we assess American adults according to five main factors: their confidence in using computers, their facility with getting new technology to work, their use of digital tools for learning, their ability to determine the trustworthiness of online information, and their familiarity with contemporary "education tech" terms. It is important to note that the findings here just cover people's learning activities in digital spaces and do not address the full range of important things that people can do online or their "readiness" to perform them.

To better understand the way in which different groups of Americans line up when it comes to digital readiness, researchers used a statistical technique called cluster analysis that places people into groups based on similarities in their answers to key questions.

The analysis shows there are several distinct groups of Americans who fall along a spectrum of digital readiness from relatively more prepared to relatively hesitant. Those who tend to be hesitant about embracing technology in learning are below average on the measures of readiness, such as needing help with new electronic gadgets or having difficulty determining whether online information is trustworthy. Those whose profiles indicate a higher level of preparedness for using tech in learning are collectively above average on measures of digital readiness.

Relatively Hesitant - 52% of adults in three distinct groups. This overall cohort is made up of three different clusters of people who are less likely to use digital tools in their learning. This has to do, in part, with the fact that these groups have generally lower levels of involvement with personal learning activities. It is also tied to their professed lower level of digital skills and trust in the online environment.

A group of 14% of adults make up The Unprepared. This group has both low levels of digital skills and limited trust in online information. The Unprepared rank at the bottom of those who use the internet to pursue learning, and they are the least digitally ready of all the groups.

We call one small group Traditional Learners, and they make up of 5% of Americans. They are active learners, but use traditional means to pursue their interests. They are less likely to fully engage with digital tools, because they have concerns about the trustworthiness of online information.

A larger group, The Reluctant, make up 33% of all adults. They have higher levels of digital skills than The Unprepared, but very low levels of awareness of new "education tech" concepts and relatively lower levels of performing personal learning activities of any kind. This is correlated with their general lack of use of the internet in learning.

Relatively more prepared - 48% of adults in two distinct groups. This cohort is made up of two groups who are above average in their likeliness to use online tools for learning.

A group we call Cautious Clickers comprises 31% of adults. They have tech resources at their disposal, trust and confidence in using the internet, and the educational underpinnings to put digital resources to use for their learning pursuits. But they have not waded into e-learning to the extent the Digitally Ready have and are not as likely to have used the internet for some or all of their learning.

Finally, there are the Digitally Ready. They make up 17% of adults, and they are active learners and confident in their ability to use digital tools to pursue learning. They are aware of the latest "ed tech" tools and are, relative to others, more likely to use them in the course of their personal learning. The Digitally Ready, in other words, have high demand for learning and use a range of tools to pursue it - including, to an extent significantly greater than the rest of the population, digital outlets such as online courses or extensive online research.

There are several important qualifying notes to sound about this analysis. First, the research focuses on a particular activity - online learning. The findings are not necessarily projectable to people's capacity (or lack of capacity) to perform health-related web searches, use mobile apps for civic activities, or use smartphones to apply for a job.

Second, while there are numerical descriptions of the groups, there is some fluidity in the boundaries of the groups. Unlike many other statistical techniques, cluster analysis does not require a single "correct" result. Instead, researchers run numerous versions of it (e.g., asking it to produce different numbers of clusters) and judge each result by how analytically practical and substantively meaningful it is. Fortunately, nearly every version produced had a great deal in common with the others, giving us confidence that the pattern of divisions were genuine and that the comparative shares of those who were relatively ready and not ready each constituted about half of Americans.

Third, it is important to note that the findings represent a snapshot of where adults are today in a fairly nascent stage of e-learning in society. The groupings reported here may well change in the coming years as people's understanding of e-tools grows and as the creators of technology related to e-learning evolve it and attempt to make it more user friendly.

Even allowing for those caveats, the findings add additional context to insights about those who pursue personal learning activities. Although factors such as educational attainment or age might influence whether people use digital tools in learning, other things such as people's digital skills and their trust in online information may also loom large. These "readiness" factors, separate and apart from demographic ones, are the focus in this report.

The results are also significant in light of Americans' expressed interest in learning and personal growth. Most Americans said in the Center survey that they like to look for opportunities to grow as people: 58% said this applies to them "very well" and another 31% said it applies to them "somewhat well." Additionally, as they age, many Americans say they hope to stay active and engaged with the world.

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Digital Literacy and Learning in the United States

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For many years concerns about "digital divides" centered primarily on whether people had access to digital technologies. Now, those worried about these issues also focus on the degree to which people succeed or struggle when they use technology to try to navigate their environments, solve problems, and make decisions.