Iphone & Ipad

I first owned a mobile phone when I was 12 years old, I first owned an MP3 player when I was 14 years old and I finally bought myself a Samsung Galaxy 2 two months ago. School children and young adults of the 21st century belong to a generation known as ‘digital natives’ or the ‘net generation’. We are the first generation to have grown up with the broader set of digital technologies.

 

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Unfortunately, compared with the children in my home centre I realised that I am not the ‘trendiest’ one. My home centre is a private-owned elite kindergarten, so all the children are coming from what we say ‘rich’ family. All the teachers except student teachers have their own Ipad as teaching tools. Every afternoon we have one by one study time. Teachers would call out one child’s name and he or she must be sitting with the teacher. The teachers would set up some tasks in Ipad and children need to complete them by using Ipad.

 

My centre also allows children to bring their own Iphone or Ipad from home, so children are able to share their ‘News’ at mat time if by any chance their news is from internet or a clip, video etc. “Concept of e-learning and ICT have become integrated in most educational planning strategies in New Zealand, and also at the national level in each country” (Krause, Bochner, Duchesne & McMaugh, 2010).

 

 

I personally believe this is a good way of using technology even it looked a bit extravagant for children. It motivates children, develops their interest, expands children’s options for learning, and poses problems that engage children’s interest, provides complex challenges and gives learners opportunities to apply their knowledge. This is linked to “Children gain experience in solving problems together and develops their understanding of how technologies can help them and others” (Ministry of education, 1996). However, learning in classroom today still remains a combination of traditional book-based learning and teacher-led instruction, alongside ICT-based learning environment.

 

Clip from YouTube: http://youtu.be/pT4EbM7dCMs

 

 

It is clear that wider social and cultural forces are increasing the prominence of ICT in the lives of both children and teachers, and this raises a number of issues for me to consider. 

 

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Child ‘K’ brought her Ipad 3 to kindy to show us some of her photos. After that she came to me and asked: “do you have an Ipad3?” I said: “No, I don’t have one.”  Then K said to me: “how come you don’t have Ipad. Why don’t you ask your mummy to buy you one?”  I was not being jealous, but I can’t afford it now. I think in K’s mind she has got a stereotype that ‘everyone should have an Ipad’ just like her and her peers in kindy. She doesn’t know that only the minority of people have Ipad and the great majority people out there don’t have one. My concern is if K takes the stereotype when she is growing up, her thinking may make poor people down. As an educator, I think we are responsible to let children have a positive understanding or what is a hierarchy and also teach them to treat others with dignity and respect.

My second concern is the healthy issue. If children are glued to these equipments it will affect their physical development and eyesight. So adults should give children some limits for using those high-tech equipments.

 

Overall, I personally would keep encouraging children to use these high-tech equipments as they really benefit people.

 

 

 

Reference:

 

Krause, K. L., Bochner, S., Duchesne, S., & McMaugh, A. (2010). Social, emotional and moral development. Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching (3^rd ed.). Melbourne, Victoria: Cengage Learning.

Ministry of Education.(1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.