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Category Archives: digital media

Parenting the littlest media users: Important study

13-Jun-13

Increasingly, digital media are just part of the rhythm of everyday US family life, a significant new study of parents of young children indicates. The study, “Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology,” conducted by Northwestern University’s Center on Media & Human Development, surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 2,300 parents of children [...]

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Definitely not just because of Windows 8

12-Apr-13

It’s not a PC, a laptop, a tablet or phone; it’s an “ultramobile.” That’s what tech research firm Gartner Group calls what’s replacing desktops. USATODAY says it’s “a fully functional personal computer that is light enough to tote around,” which sounds like a smartphone. You can read more about how it’s different at USATODAY. The [...]

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Consider the possibility of kids’ self-regulation of digital media

09-Apr-13

Are iPads bad for little children? I ask that metaphorically, for two reasons: because iPads represent a host of tablets and other touchscreen devices children seem to play with joyfully and intuitively, and because that attraction makes it extra hard to imagine kids could self-regulate that iPad play. And yet they do. Take Gideon, for [...]

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Young readers and e-readers: Study

23-Jan-13

Despite their love for digital technology, 80% of kids and teens who use ebooks “still read primarily print books for fun,” a new Scholastic survey of readers aged 6-17 has found. But we are seeing a shift in the way kids read: “58% of 9-to-17-year-olds say they will always want to read books printed on [...]

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Teachers’ views on how tech’s changing students: Studies

12-Nov-12

For a new report, the Pew Internet Project surveyed and held focus groups with more than 2,000 middle and high school teachers in the Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) communities and found that 77% feel “the Internet and digital search tools have had a ‘mostly positive’ impact on their students’ research habits, [...]

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Substantive followup to ‘Kony 2012′: Support Hope North

08-Oct-12

This article was originally published March 14, 2012, then my service’s server crashed, losing months of data. So reposting 10/8/12. Leaving all criticism in the dust because it’s more distraction than action, here’s the natural response to “Kony 2012,” the most viral digital-video campaign in history (so far): “This Thing That Happened” about Hope North, [...]

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Another high-profile sexting study: Takeaways for parents

21-Sep-12

Let’s just cut right to the takeaway for parents, then some background. The takeaway, which is right in the headline of TheAtlantic.com’s intelligent coverage of new data on sexting published in the journal Pediatrics: We need to talk with our kids about sexting, but I would add: that might be in the context of their [...]

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A suspension of disbelief needed

20-Sep-12

Sidebar to my post below, “Literacy for a digital age” In talks he gives, media professor Henry Jenkins, often refers to the advice Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, gets from his Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” But Dr. Jenkins, a professor at the University of Southern California, isn’t only creating a parallel between [...]

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‘Save the Universe’: Clear space for learning

02-Sep-12

Last week, Part 1 about the “whitewater-kayaking kind of learning needed today”; here, in Part 2, a great example: An alternative headline might be: “A bucket of bricks for learning,” but I’ll get to the bricks in a minute. First the backstory. Marianne Malmstrom teaches the richest possible kind of media literacy to and with, [...]

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The whitewater-kayaking kind of learning needed today

02-Sep-12

This week: the first of a three-part series on two educators working in very different spheres – John Seely Brown at the University of Southern California, helping adults think creatively about learning, and Marianne Malmstrom at the Elisabeth Morrow School in New Jersey, helping children learn creatively Play is essential, says John Seely Brown, to [...]

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