Parents....Tech Time or Waste of Time?

http://www.tomorrow.org/

Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey: The Parent Gap

It’s not surprising, just ask anyone who has spent any amount of time around adolescents, that kids spend a lot of time with their eyes glued to a variety of screens.  They are watching videos, tutorials, gaming, reading on Kindles, connecting with friends on Instagram or Facebook or, occasionally, looking up information for schoolwork.  I know that it is not uncommon to find my own kids all in one room on different gaming systems or various devices.  Every once in a while they will comment on what the other is doing or point out something interesting that they think is amusing.  Announcements that dinner is ready usually bring on at least one heavy sigh.

What the Parent Participation may mean

photo source

Maybe this is why none of the numbers involving student usage of technology that I saw in Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey (http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/SU13DigitalLearningPlaybook_StudentReport.html) were really surprising.  What was surprising to me was the part of the research that discussed if administrators, teachers, parents and students were all on the same page in terms of what is important for the benefits of digital learning and how parents seemed, in most cases, to be the ones who were not on the same page as everyone else.  Especially when it comes to things like school wide internet access or 1:1 technology.  It makes me wonder if, perhaps, parents see their children’s technology usage at home and feel that they are getting enough of the benefits of technology outside of the classroom and therefore technology wise they are all set.  To me, it seems this is more than just a gap in what parents feel is important, but possibly in how their students will benefit from in school usage of technology and how that differs from their at home usage.  I think it could be easy for a parent to feel like their kid is spending a ton of time on their smartphone texting friends and feel that there is no benefit to this behavior in a school setting.

   I feel that this may be were it is important to educate parents a little on why tech use at home does not necessarily mean that students are equipped to utilize technology for research or assessment in school or in a later work environment.  (ie. Just because you can find hair and makeup tutorials on Youtube, doesn’t mean that you can find primary sources on the civil rights movement.)  Let’s face it, when your boss says, “I need a cost effective analysis on initializing assembly line robotics.” You want to be able to bring the most accurate, up to date information to the table and you need to know how to do that.

photo source

I also wonder if parents don’t see the possibilities for the kind of digital use that their kids are already engaged in at home.

The Bottom Line?

It seems from the research that kids get it.  They understand that these skills are necessary and they know that it will make them more marketable when they are job searching.  It will make their research easier and more accurate and it will make it easier for them to communicate their findings to the decision makers in their career paths.  As educators, maybe we need to be doing more with technology in the classroom in order to advocate for the educational benefits of social media and internet usage to stakeholders like parents.  By showing them the positives of screen time, maybe, they can see that tech time is time well spent.