With an increase in technology, kids are being introduced to the art of multitasking at younger and younger ages. When older kids and adults sit down to work we get an email, a notification that something’s been posted on our wall, a text, or a phone call. There are those educators and parents who fully embrace technology and the constant attention it demands and those that recoil at the idea of giving rambunctious kids any tool that could tear their attention away from the task at hand.
LifeBound Academic Coaches Training, December 2010
In forty states, millions of students in K-12 public schools are taking at least one course online, according to a new report. Due to budget cuts and busy schedules, administrators are also turning to the Internet for professional development training. Online professional development not only cuts back on travel time and cost, it also expands the administrator’s network from the confinement of a district or state to districts and states in the entire nation.
A new report shows children under 8 are exposed to more screen time than ever before. Another trend that became apparent from the same study is what researchers are calling the “app gap,” which refers to the gap between what technology is available to affluent and low-income children. Affluent kids are more likely to spend their screen time playing interactive games and low-income kids are more likely to spend their screen time in front of the television, according to the article “Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children.”
Some other eye-opening statistics about childhood media exposure the study revealed are:
While some experts are worrying about closing the digital divide, others are sending their kids to schools that refuse technology like the Waldorf School of the Peninsula in Silicon Valley, according to the article “A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute.”
If you are a recent college grad, odds are you can relate to stories about your new student debt impacting your personal and professional life.
According to a new study by NCES, dropout rates have declined since 1972, but there are still 3 million students between 16 and 24, a large amount who are minority or poor, who haven’t earned high school diplomas.
There are two theories about what an IQ test actually measures. One is that your IQ score shows your intellectual capacity, which is something that is set in stone. The other theory is that an IQ test is an achievement test which can change over time and is determinate of your studies and information gathering abilities.
A new study shows introducing television and videos to babies younger than two-years-old can harm their development, according to a pediatricians group. Parents are encouraged to instead talk to their children and let them engage in independent play in the new guidelines, as decided by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The change in guidelines was motivated by the steep increase in DVDs that are now made for kids under 2-years-old and because 90 percent of parents in the study said they allow their infants to take in media in some form.
Over the last few days we’ve honored World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Last month, alongside International Literacy Day, the UN released statistics that showed how difficult it is to fight poverty and sickness in nations around the world where illiteracy is rampant.
Some notable numbers that show the magnitude of illiteracy on a worldwide scale are:
Last year, 116 of KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Empower School kindergarteners were part of an experiment that set out to see if “blended learning,” a teaching method that divides class time between a teacher and computers, could be effective for young learners, according to the article “Kindergarteners at the Keyboard.”
