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Tag: digital citizenship

Screentime in the Age of Online Learning: Monitoring and Managing

February 17, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Image courtesy of Unsplash

While we are in the middle of online learning, helping students to be aware of and to manage their screentime is as important as ever. It’s also important that families have agreements around the use of screens for learning and for entertainment.

Monitoring Screentime

It’s hard to make informed decisions on screentime without some data to consider. Many times, this data will make the discussion easier since it can be used as a point of reference for both students and parents when it comes to how and why screens are being used (and if they are being used appropriately).

A powerful tool to use on your school laptop is RescueTime. This is a third-party app that, when installed, runs in the background and helps keep track of how and when the computer is being used. For students in Grade 6, you can log in to Cisco AnyConnect and then install RescueTime from Self Service. Users in Grade 7 and above can just download the application from the website.

A sample RescueTime Report

In addition to installing the app, you will also need to create an account. We recommend using your school email address. You can use this post to help you with the sign up and setup process. For most cases, using the

For those of you that are using iOS devices like iPhones and iPads, you can use the built-in Screentime app to help you monitor your usage. You can also use the Screentime app to limit your access to your device, either by time period (downtime) or by time limits per app.

Managing Screens and Technology

In all of our parent education sessions, we suggest these same important rules:

  1. Set family technology agreements around how and when screens will be used. (You can also use the Common Sense Media version as a starting point.) If you’ve already created them as a family, it may be worth revisiting them and making sure they still work for you. During this period of online learning, this is more important than ever!
  2. We recommend that devices are used in public spaces of the house, like the kitchen table or in a dedicated study space, so that it encourages students to stay on task. It’s easy to get sidetracked online so use others to help you stay on track!
  3. We also recommend that devices are not charged and stored overnight in the student’s bedroom. We all need a break from our screens, and the constant dinging of notifications can have an effect on the quality of our sleep.
  4. Identify some screen-free times for your family and stick to them. For many, screen-free dinners give everybody a time to connect as a family and share what has happened during their day.

 

 

 

Becoming Media Mentors & Media Mentor Month

March 28, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Thank you to all of the parents who participated in this morning’s session “Becoming Media Mentors for Our Children”. I really do appreciate your time and the thoughts that you shared with the other parents in the room. For those who weren’t able to attend, I’m embedding the slides that we used as well as a few resources that we discussed. At the bottom of this post, I explain Media Mentor Month and link to the calendar of activities (in English, Mandarin, and Korean).

What are Media Mentors?

We spent a good amount of time discussing the work of Alexandra Samuel and her research into 10,000 families in North America. In her work, she categorized the families that she spoke with into three distinct camps: technology limiters, technology enablers, and technology mentors. While we all exhibit behaviors from all three camps at different times during our lives (or even during the day!), it is important to note that it is one’s general mindset that is key.  In her research, Samuel discovered that Mentor-inspired parents are more likely to have conversations about the responsible use of technology, and children of Limiter-inspired parents are more likely to engage in  online misbehavior.

You can watch her briefly explain her work here:

What is Media Mentor Month?

Parents may sometimes feel like they don’t know where to start when talking about media, technology and screen time with their children. Media Mentor Month is a series of activities and conversation starters that parents can use to initiate these important discussions with their children. As we discussed in the session, being a mentor is not the same as being the expert nor does it require you to have all of the answers. Becoming a Media Mentor for your child is more about parents understanding what their children are doing online and with technology, understanding why it is important to them, and helping them to learn to make decisions that align with your values as a family.

It would be great if parents can have all 30 of these discussions with their children, but in reality we know that will be hard for most families. So instead of trying to do everything, pick and choose the ones that are right for you!

Media Mentor Month – English Version
Click for printable PDF version

Media Mentor Month – Mandarin Version
Click for printable PDF version

Media Mentor Month – Korean Version
Click for printable PDF version

True screen wisdom is about relationships. It’s the kinds of connections we can have with one another. It’s about trust. And balance.

Devorah Heitner 

 

 

Be a Media Mentor for Your Child

March 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I don’t think anybody would disagree with the importance of being a positive role model for your children. When it comes to technology, however,  Dr. Alexandra Samuel has identified three distinct parenting styles in her research:

  • The Digital Limiter: prefers to keep their children away from the internet, and often strictly limit screentime. These children are often Digital Exiles, kept out of the digital world for as long as possible;
  • The Digital Enabler: respect their children’s’ abilities to make their own choices online and take cues from other families on how to use technology. These children are often Digital Orphans, left to explore on their own;
  • The Digital Mentor: enjoys spending time with their children online, cultivating their children’s skills and fostering online learning. These children are often Digital Heirs, inheriting their parents’ values and skills.

Read more about Dr. Samuel’s findings here in her article in The Atlantic.

When looking at the percentage of children who have misbehaved online, Dr. Samuel discovered that it is the children of Digital Mentors who are often making the best choices.

So how can we help our children make these good choices? How can we become Media Mentors them?

Keri-Lee Beasley and Daniel Johnson from GEMS World Academy in Switzerland created and shared a calendar of suggested activities for parents to use as ways to engage with their children and discuss. This calendar also includes links to resources to help support you in having some of the more difficult discussions or in some of the more technical skills.

As a family, you may not be able to take part in all of the activities with your children, but that’s okay!  We encourage you to find the ones that you can take part in and make the time to start having these important discussions and mentoring conversations within your entire family!

 

Click to view the full-size file for download

Click to view the full-size file for download

#techchat vol 1

September 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Canva

Canva is an easy online tool for some high quality graphic design! (The banner above was made in Canva.) It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s free! You can choose from a bunch of preset templates, use the free images and graphics that are pre-loaded and create a  great looking image in no time. Or, you can upload your own images and even pay for the ‘premium’ fonts and graphics if you want to go that extra mile!

Technology Addiction: Concern, Controversy and Finding Balance

Common Sense Media does a lot of research in the field of digital citizenship and child behavior. In May 2016, the organization published this executive summary (sign-in required) of a research brief that they completed with their 6 key findings summarized as well as a great list of references for further reading.

Show Me for iPads

Show Me is an app that is on all of our elementary school iPads. It’s an interactive whiteboard that allows students to import images, add text annotations, and draw on top of their images. They can record this whole process, including their voice explanations as they ‘show’ their thinking. This explanation can include multiple slides so students, for example, can easily compare a “before” and “after” image and explain what they’ve done/learned. This is can all be saved as a movie in the camera roll and can then be uploaded to Seesaw just like any other video.

#techchat is a regular post on the ISB Ed Tech blog. The aim is to share useful apps, websites, readings, and more to the ISB community. How have you used these resources? What else can we feature? We’d love to have your suggestions or comments below!

Spotting Fake News

February 26, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Stories about and accusations of fake news are everywhere these days. The term fake news became popular after the US Presidential election though the meaning of the term has morphed since then. Regardless, it’s important to be able to spot inaccurate online information.

How NOT to Spot Fake News from PBS Idea Channel covers the topic of fake news while giving some good tips for spotting bogus news stories.

Additional Resources for Spotting Fake News

There’s not one guaranteed way to spot a fake news story but if you’re looking for some quick tips to help you spot one both FackCheck.org and the TedEd Blog have some good ideas.

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