The cognitive impact of television use on infants and toddlers (<∼2.5 years old) is related to the amount of exposure, the program content, and the social context of viewing.

The cognitive impact of these media depends on the age of the child, the kind of programming (educational programming versus programming produced for adults), the social context of viewing, as well the particular kind of interactive media (eg, computer games)

There has been considerable concern that television may negatively influence young children’s executive function, especially the ability to focus and sustain attention in task situations.

There is little question from a large amount of research that educational television has a positive impact on cognitive development.

Thus, it appears that parental engagement with both television and interactive media, such as smartphones, may reduce the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions, which are crucial for the development of cognitive skills, especially language and executive function.

and other interactive technologies (eg, educational apps for tablets and smartphones) to support learning in formal educational contexts.1

Media have repeatedly been claimed to be important sources of children’s informal education beyond school.

The use of computer games as well as educational computer programs can lead to gains in academically relevant content and other cognitive skills. This article concludes by identifying topics and goals for future research and provides recommendations based on current research-based knowledge.

The cognitive impact of these media depends on the age of the child, the kind of programming (educational programming versus programming produced for adults), the social context of viewing, as well the particular kind of interactive media (eg, computer games).

If this study can be replicated at a much larger scale, the results point to the potential of a media touch screen diet that is rich in educational software as a relatively inexpensive mode of early intervention for school readiness.

At this time, the issue is unresolved, with effects likely depending on age of a child, the type of programming watched, and other contextual factors.21

There is little research on whether watching adult entertainment programming has an overall positive or negative cognitive effect, but there is fairly clear evidence that violent content can influence antisocial and aggressive behavior.19

Once comprehension is established, television begins to influence child knowledge and, therefore, cognitive development more generally.

Parental use of mobile devices, however, has been shown to considerably reduce parental interactions with young children.14

Such claims include the potential of electronic games and other interactive technologies (eg, educational apps for tablets and smartphones) to support learning in formal educational contexts.1

On the positive side, all of these media have been claimed to be enriching, allowing children to vicariously experience and witness places and events far beyond their normal experiences

The use of computer games as well as educational computer programs can lead to gains in academically relevant content and other cognitive skills.

Social media can thus provide a good forum to practice skills related to identity development, such as self-presentation and self-disclosure.

exposure to developmentally inappropriate content.

76% of teen-aged respondents in a recent Pew Research Center survey reported that they use social media.

discourage the placement of media in children’s bedrooms and encourage parents to limit the total amount of entertainment screen time in general to <1 to 2 hours per day

clinically significant impairment or distress.”

The increasing prevalence of digital media has led to growing public concerns about potential detrimental effects, including the possibility that video game play may be “addicting.”

Withdrawal symptoms when gaming is taken away: These symptoms are typically described as irritability, anxiety, or sadness;

The tendency to be constantly connected to one’s social network through digital devices, therefore, potentially contributes to feelings of anxiety.

depression has been postulated to be caused by substituted digital communication, such as excessive mobile phone use that takes the place of face-to-face contact and causes subsequent social isolation

Adolescents may seek digital distraction from emerging anxiety or distress emotions, creating a reinforced behavioral avoidance of emotional experiences.

Little research has been conducted on acute fear reactions delivered by newer technologies, such as the Internet, social media, and portable devices.

A variety of surveys dating back as far as the 1930s have shown that a substantial proportion of children experience acute fearful reactions to various aspects of the content of media, especially movies, television dramas, and the news.1

anxiety resulting from lack of emotion-regulation skills because of substituted digital media use

Researchers have documented that the options of texting, instant messaging, and emailing have become preferred by some individuals over face-to-face interactions for some types of contact.

In contrast, research with adults showed that using the Internet to communicate with friends and family was linked with decreases in depression

Key topics of inquiry include the following: anxiety and depression associated with technology-based negative social comparison

ms.17 The majority of victims report negative feelings, such as embarrassment, worry, fear, depression, or loneliness after cyberbullying events.24

a feeling of being dependent on text messaging was associated with depression.

the behavior may actually increase risk in individuals vulnerable to social anxiety disorder.

Research has shown that individuals with Internet overuse or addiction report using it to avoid negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression.

adults showed that using the Internet to communicate with friends and family was linked with decreases in depression.6

people leading exciting and idealized lives in media programs invites social comparison and contributes to dissatisfaction with oneself.4

difficult to calm a child who has been intensely frightened by a program or movie, and the resulting loss of sleep and heightened levels of unnecessary anxiety

especially social media

Early research has explored the impact of traditional media (eg, television, movies) on children’s acute fears, which can result in anxieties and related sleep disturbances that are difficult to remedy.

In fact, researchers conducting a recent longitudinal study of adolescents found that greater use of mobile phones at baseline was associated with higher levels of depression 1 year later.19

The use of social technology (eg, texting, instant messaging, e-mailing) has become a primary method of communication for a majority of young adults, and interrupting the use of these technologies can lead to increased levels of anxiety.

For these individuals, opting to substitute digital media for interpersonal communication to avoid feared situations may become cyclically reinforced over time, making the person even more avoidant and worsening the symptoms and severity of social anxiety disorder.1

n contrast, research with adults showed that using the Internet to communicate with friends and family was linked with decreases in depression.6

However, considering that these types of technologies are often used to access video entertainment, much of what we know about fear and children is applicable to modern types of media use.

Research on traditional media has found that the representation of attractive people leading exciting and idealized lives in media programs invites social comparison and contributes to dissatisfaction with oneself.4

Media use that provides effective distraction, humor, connection to peers, and a wide social network could serve to help adolescents avoid depression and potentially reduce its impact on their functioning

A recent meta-analysis of 131 studies23 highlighted the following key findings: (1) most estimates of the prevalence of cyberbullying among adolescents fall between 11% and 48%, depending on the definition of cyberbullying, group demographics, and the reporting time frame; (2) there is a substantial degree of overlap between adolescents who bully others offline and those who engage in cyberbullying (similarly, victims of cyberbullying are often victimized offline); and (3) adolescents who experience cyberbullying are at increased risk for a wide range of mental and physical health problems.17 The majority of victims report negative feelings, such as embarrassment, worry, fear, depression, or loneliness after cyberbullying events.

In Japan, researchers noted anxiety in students (mean age = 18.4 years) such that when they did not receive an instant reply to their text message, they felt a fear of being ostracized

Although primarily correlational, research suggests that young people who replace in-person exchanges with virtual interactions intensify their social impairments, whereas those who use online exchanges to supplement existing friendships report improvements in the quality and closeness of their existing relationships.

Researchers have documented that the options of texting, instant messaging, and emailing have become preferred by some individuals over face-to-face interactions for some types of contact.

Research has shown that individuals with Internet overuse or addiction report using it to avoid negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression

A variety of surveys dating back as far as the 1930s have shown that a substantial proportion of children experience acute fearful reactions to various aspects of the content of media, especially movies, television dramas, and the news.

It is often difficult to calm a child who has been intensely frightened by a program or movie, and the resulting loss of sleep and heightened levels of unnecessary anxiety can cause physical, cognitive, and emotional problems.

n contrast, research with adults showed that using the Internet to communicate with friends and family was linked with decreases in depression.6

ocial networking sites can influence depression and anxiety in adolescents through technology-based negative social comparison, resulting in negative self-evaluation or anxiety about evaluation by others.

Many new vehicles come equipped with wireless technology, voice commands, and touchscreen liquid crystal displays that allows motorists to place calls, send voice-based text messages, navigate with the GPS, stream music, search the Internet, engage in using social media, and interact with other “infotainment” systems. The majority of these interactions are significant sources of driver distraction,17

Rather, it is more helpful to think in terms of a healthy media diet that incorporates similar properties to a healthy food diet: moderation in amount, consuming more of the helpful and less of the harmful content, and having regard for the age of the consumer.

The vast majority of laboratory-based experimental studies have revealed that violent media exposure causes increased aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiologic arousal, hostile appraisals, aggressive behavior, and desensitization to violence and decreases prosocial behavior (eg, helping others) and empathy.

Violence in screen entertainment media (ie, television, film, video games, and the Internet), defined as depictions of characters (or players) trying to physically harm other characters (or players), is ubiquitous.

exposure to violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiologic arousal, hostile appraisals, and aggressive behavior and decreases prosocial behavior

violent video games can also have negative effects on players.

Video games in particular have increased in popularity, with some teenagers reporting that they play ≥40 hours per week

Active mediation refers to parent-child conversations about media, including parental attempts to provide children with critical viewing skills regarding media. For example, a parent might discuss themes of bullying after the child views a television program containing aggressive behavior.9 Finally, co-viewing is when parents view, use, or consume media with their children but do not necessarily discuss the content with them

Children today average more hours engaged with media each week than they do engaged with almost any other activity (between 6 and 9 hours/day).

We find that child characteristics, the parent-child relationship, parental mediation practices, and parents’ own use of media all can influence children’s media use, their attitudes regarding media, and the effects of media on children.

For young children, active mediation can influence their comprehension of media, learning, and language exposure. When parents ask questions and scaffold interactions during media use, children as young as 3 can learn from videos and transfer learning to other settings.14 Between ages 1 and 2, toddlers can interact over video chat more effectively with parent support and learn content from media more readily when a parent co-views and teaches them the presented material.

In addition, low-income parents with toddlers with social-emotional delays were more likely to give their child mobile devices to calm them down or keep them quiet.

However, in older children, gaming has the potential to encourage more family interactions because children often attempted to bring parents into their online and console playing

A recent meta-analysis revealed that both restrictive and active mediation can reduce negative media effects, such as the learning of aggressive behavior, substance use, and sexual behavior, whereas co-viewing (without discussion) tends to enhance or facilitate media effects

How can parents use media as a tool to strengthen their family?

Sleep deprivation has been associated with increased obesity and weight gain among children, most consistently among those between ages 3 and 7

This suggests that displacement of physical activity may not be a strong link between screen time and obesity.

Observational studies have also revealed that greater screen time is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors more broadly, including hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels, insulin resistance, elevated inflammation, and the metabolic syndrome.2

Current evidence suggests that screen media exposure leads to obesity in children and adolescents through increased eating while viewing; exposure to high-calorie, low-nutrient food and beverage marketing that influences children’s preferences, purchase requests, consumption habits; and reduced sleep duration

Eating while viewing is one important way that screen media exposure increases children’s energy intake.

Over the 7 months of the trial, children in the school that received the screen-time reduction curriculum significantly reduced their television viewing, video game use, and number of meals eaten in front of the television

Make sleep a priority: Talk with families about the importance of sleep and healthy sleep expectations.Encourage a bedtime routine that includes calming activities and avoids electronic media use.Encourage families to remove all electronic media from their children or teenagers’ bedrooms, including televisions, video games, computers, tablets, and cell phones.Talk with families about the negative consequences of bright light in the evening on sleep.If the child or adolescent in your care is exhibiting mood or behavioral problems, consider insufficient sleep as a contributing factor.

For example, media use in adults is associated with sleep onset latency but not with tiredness because adults who spend substantial time engaging with media may have the opportunity to compensate by sleeping longer.21 Such a compensatory mechanism is largely impossible for children and adolescents because their wake times are primarily determined by parents, school hours, and/or extracurricular activities.

Data from US population-based studies show that ∼30% of preschool-aged children and between 50% and 90% of school-aged children and adolescents do not get as much sleep as they may need.1,2 The pervasive use of screen-based media is a likely contributor to widespread sleep insufficiency. Screen-based media devices are present in the bedrooms of 75% of children,3 and ∼60% of adolescents report viewing or interacting with screens in the hour before bedtime.4 In a recent systematic review of 67 studies of screen time and media use in school-aged youth and teenagers (1999–2014), 90% found that screen time was adversely associated with sleep health, primarily via delayed bedtimes and reduced sleep duration.5 Potential mechanisms underlying these observed associations include the following6: (1) time displacement (ie, time spent on screens replaces time spent doing other things, including sleeping)7; (2) psychological stimulation based on media content8; and (3) the effects of light emitted from devices on circadian timing, sleep physiology, and alertness.9 Healthy sleep patterns in childhood and adolescence are associated with lower obesity risk,10,11 better psychological well-being,12 improved cognitive functioning,13 and lower risk-taking behaviors.14 We propose that sleep among children and adolescents should be a priority in family, school, and clinical contexts, as well as in future basic, observational, and translational research.

online sexual harassment has been linked with more serious problems, including depression and substance abuse,

the effects of being cyberbullied may be worse than those of being bullied in a traditional sense

Indeed, many teenagers report at least sometimes doing homework while using another medium, including television (51% of teenagers), social networking (50%), text messaging (60%), and listening to music (76%).

American youth spend more time with media than any other waking activity: an average of 7.5 hours per day, every day. On average, 29% of that time is spent juggling multiple media streams simultaneously (ie, media multitasking).

s well as interventions on behalf of international development by organizations such as the United National Children’s Fund

Discursive and normative uncertainties mean that, for instance, “digital learning” is open to different interpretations, ranging from an instrumental concern with employability and growth to more idealist concerns for social mobility, social justice, and empowerment. In addition, given the huge inequalities in region, income, culture, sex, and so forth, efforts to promote digital opportunities can also become, inadvertently, the means by which inequalities are reproduced or new risks are encountered.

in-school and after-school virtual learning and online coordination of academic activities are further intensifying the already considerable academic pressures on children in middle-class households, with the potential to adversely affect parent-child relationships

Research on parental use of monitoring technologies suggests that such updates about children’s whereabouts may trigger authoritarian parents to be more controlling,19 which in turn is unlikely to enhance children’s academic performance.

For instance, the United States, among other wealthy countries, is witnessing calls for data-driven instruction in the hope that this can remove bias in student advancement, equalize education, and improve learning outcomes and teacher efficiency.

In India, progress depends on the business case for digital education, which is only slowly gaining ground as the education market develops software packages around textbook content

s the goal to prepare students for a competitive workforce, to connect marginalized youth, to support schools, or to provide progressive alternatives to school? The goals determine the means, and both have implications for evaluating technological interventions.

Or, consider that although most research stems from urban settings, many children globally live in rural areas (55% of the child population in China, for instance) where difficulties of mass migration, poverty, and loss of parents already undermine children’s well-being

Yet these promises are countered by prominent public and policy concerns over the harms to children associated with society’s growing reliance on digitally networked technologies.

This article documents the particular irony that while the world’s poorer countries look to research to find ways to increase access and accelerate the fair distribution of digital educational resources, the world’s wealthier countries look to research for guidance in managing excessive screen time, heavily commercial content, and technologies that intrude on autonomy and privacy

A considerable body of work now suggests that socioeconomic status predicts digital literacy skills.2

The concept of digital and media literacy as a broad construct has not yet entered political discourse. Policy makers must recognize digital and media literacy as literacy in today’s world.

In short, interventions that equip youth to critically navigate their digital lives have positive impacts that mitigate potentially harmful effects of participation in digital spaces.

The fallout about “fake news” from the 2016 US presidential election is but 1 example of the consequences we face when citizens do not engage critical digital and media literacies.

eading and writing in digital spaces may require a more complex application of skills than print-based literacy2

These questions underscore what parents, educators, health professionals, and community leaders need to know to ensure that youth become digitally and media literate.

Training children and parents in particular about privacy threats and how to protect children’s privacy could also fall in this domain of activity.

Policy makers should expand children’s privacy safeguards to encompass data collection and marketing practices across digital platforms, including toys and other objects that are part of the Internet of Things.

Studies have shown, for example, that teenagers are inclined to behave impulsively and often do not think about the consequences of their actions before taking them, even in situations involving considerable risk.32

For example, although high school students in 1 study expressed little concern about the future use of their personal data, they also demonstrated limited knowledge of the actual business practices involved in using such information for commercial purposes.25

Mattel’s “Hello Barbie” is emblematic of a new generation of interactive digital toys; it records a child’s voice, sends the recording to the Cloud, uses voice-recognition software to decode the content, and learns the child’s name, conversational styles, habits, and interests.20

These tools and techniques are frequently used to identify children and youth of color, including Hispanic people and African Americans, and create targeted marketing messages based on their ethnicities and cultures

Sophisticated algorithms make it possible to tailor and personalize each user’s experience, alter what an individual sees in a newsfeed or other online content, and create advertising messages based on the user’s interests, friends, and routine actions.

For example, privacy is important to young people’s psychosocial development, ensuring they have the freedom and autonomy to explore and try out a variety of possible selves in their search for identity, without risk of surveillance or exposure.

As children increasingly consume content on an ever-expanding variety of digital devices, media and advertising industries are creating new ways to track their behaviors and target them with personalized content and marketing messages based on individual profiles.

Using WordPress import tool is great for moving pages and posts

The Internet is such a big piece in everyday life. We use social media on a regular basis. There are so many accounts to manage. Users are bound to the specific guidelines set by the specific social network giving them a very little freedom to expand, create, or build out their own space.

I do think that providing faculty a space to build out a course site, web page, portfolio is valuable, but there are many tools you can do that with: the LMS, wordpress.com, wikipedia, blogger, Wix, Squarespace, etc.

I certainly see the value of easy and can definitely appreciate a tech initiative for faculty without too much confusing overhead, but in some ways a curriculum around domains should resist the impulse to simplify too much.

Digital Storytelling (also affectionately known as ds106) is an open, online course that I’ve been teaching at UMW since Spring 2010

learn how to manage a basic website, improving their skills and confidence in the process, as well as understanding a lot more about how the web works,

In a 2007 talk at EDUCAUSE, I made the case that the infrastructure was moving to the cloud where students could, and would, take care of their own services, relying on standards to interoperate with the institutions they’d serially associate with during their careers and lives.

And then — contrary to what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over — the domain and all its content are the student’s to take with them. It is, after all, their education, their intellectual development, their work.

Students have little agency when it comes to education technology — much like they have little agency in education itself.

what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over 

Students have control over the look and feel of their own sites, including what’s shared publicly.

Student privacy has become one of the hottest issues in education, with some 170 bills proposed so far this year that would regulate it.

This means they have some say — although not complete — over their personal data, and in turn they begin to have an understanding of the technologies that underpin the Web, including how their work and their data circulate there.

important

The school facilitates the purchase of the domain; it helps with installation of WordPress and other open source software; it offers both technical and instructional support; and it hosts the site until graduation when domain ownership is transferred to the student.

And then — contrary to what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over — the domain and all its content are the student’s to take with them. It is, after all, their education, their intellectual development, their work.

But almost all arguments about student privacy, whether those calling for more restrictions or fewer, fail to give students themselves a voice, let alone some assistance in deciding what to share online.

At the simplest level, a Domain of One’s Own helps students build their own digital portfolio. They can be used in a classroom setting in order for students to demonstrate their learning.

Schools routinely caution students about the things they post on social media, and the tenor of this conversation — particularly as translated by the media — is often tinged with fears that students will be seen “doing bad things” or “saying bad things” that will haunt them forever.

The Domain of One’s Own initiative at University of Mary Washington (UMW) is helping to recast the conversation about student data.

this possibility of increased ownership and agency over technology and a somewhat romantic idea I have that this can transfer to inspire ownership and agency over learning

. Alan’s code made it incredibly easy to do that. Over the next couple of months I’ll do the same for a few other stories.

Creation can be viewed simply as the act of producing, or causing to exist.  Construction is the building or assembling of an infrastructure. Construction is equal parts inspiration and perspiration. Construction calls on creativity as well as persistence, flexibility, and revision. Construction asks our students and teachers to focus on the power and patience employed during work process…and not just the final resultant work product.

sustained,

Construction asks our students and teachers to focus on the power and patience employed during work process…and not just the final resultant work product.

I believe that viewing the work as construction and more expansive that just creation allows for this eventuality.

on a film or a book and discuss it with others we are taking the original author’s creativity and remixing it in our own life, using it to extend our own ideas or to produce a criticism. Lessig (2005) says that every single act of reading and choosing and criticizing and praising culture is in this sense remix, and it is through this general practice that cultures get made. History shows us, for example, that remix isn’t specific to digital times but has always been a part of any society’s cultural development (see, for example, Pettitt’s analysis of remix in Shakespeare’s work, 2007). More specifically Lessig refers to a practice of creative writing within the school curriculum in parts of North America whereby students read texts by multiple authors, take bits from each of them, and put them together in a single text. This is a process of taking and remixing “as a way of creating something new” (ibid.: n.p.). At the broadest level, then, remix is the general condition of cultures: no remix, no culture. We remix language every time we draw on it, and we remix meanings every time we take an idea or an artefact or a word and integrate it into what we are saying and doing at the time. At a more specific level we now have digital remix enabled by computers. This includes, but goes far beyond simply mixing music. It involves mixing digital images, texts, sounds and animation; in short, all manner of found artefacts. Young people are picking this up on a massive scale and it is becoming increasingly central to their practices of making meaning and expressing ideas. Lessig argues that these practices constitute remix as writing for these legions of digital youth: When you say the word writing, for those of us over the age of 15, our conception of writing is writing with text . . . But if you think about the ways kids under 15 using digital technology think about writing – you know, writing with text is just one way to write, and not even the most interesting way to write. The more interesting ways are increasingly to use images and sound and video to express ideas (in Koman 2005: n.p.).Lessig (2005) provides a range of examples of the kinds of digital remix practices that in his view constitute “the more interesting ways [to write]” for young people. These include remixing clips from movies to create “faux” trailers for hypothetical movies; setting remixed movie trailers to remixed music of choice that is synchronized to the visual action; recording a series of anime cartoons and then video-editing them in synchrony with a popular music track; mixing “found” images with original images in order to express a theme or idea (with or without text added); and mixing images, animations and texts to create cartoons or satirical posters (including political cartoons and animations), to name just a few types.

a very general level all of culture can be understood in terms of remix, where someone creates a cultural product by mixing meaningful elements together (e.g., ideas from different people with ideas of one’s own), and then someone else comes along and remixes this cultural artefact with others to create yet another artefact.

enus Species + Species Hybrids Example

Provide equal opportunity and access for all students to use ICTs that foster and improve learning

Pre-K

Open learning, also known as open education, can be defined as a set of practices, resources, and scholarship that are openly accessible, free to use and access, and to re-purpose

open education advocate

Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture

Expeditionary

Learning STEM Skills by Designing Video Games

pedagogy of Multiliteracies, in contrast, requires that the enormous role of agency in the meaning making process be recognised, and in that recognition, it seeks to create a more productive, relevant, innovative, creative and even perhaps emancipatory, pedagogy. Literacy teaching is not about skills and competence; it is aimed a creating a kind of person, an active designer of meaning, with a sensibility open to differences, change and innovation. The logic of Multiliteracies is one which recognises that meaning making is an active, transformative process, and a pedagogy based on that recognition is more likely to open up viable lifecourses for a world of change and diversity

he Multiliteracies approach suggests a pedagogy for active citizenship, centred on learners as agents in their own knowledge processes, capable of contributing their own as well as negotiating the differences between one community and the next

Working online is a fluid experience which calls for flexible learners.

Working online is a fluid experience which calls for flexible learners.

But, most importantly, they are to use the expertise of other students and the teacher in the classroom.

Construction asks our students and teachers to focus on the power and patience employed during work process…and not just the final resultant work product.

our understanding of construction and creation needs to be broad enough to allow for change in the future.

The ideas and concepts in all of this work does overlap sometimes…and students and teachers should feel empowered to move in, out, and between all of the concepts. Working online is a fluid experience which calls for flexible learners

We remix language every time we draw on it, and we remix meanings every time we take an idea or an artefact or a word and integrate it into what we are saying and doing at the time. At a more specific level we now have digital remix enabled by computers. This includes, but goes far beyond simply mixing music. It involves mixing digital images, texts, sounds and animation; in short, all manner of found artefacts.

By “remix” we mean the practice of taking cultural artefacts and combining and manipulating them into a new kind of creative blend.

We accept this conceptual extension of “writing” to include practices of producing, exchanging and negotiating digitally remixed texts, which may employ a single medium or may be multimedia remixes

omeone else comes along and remixes this cultural artefact with others to create yet another artefact

“remix” we mean the practice of taking cultural artefacts and combining and manipulating them into a new kind of creative blend

new communication practices, new literacies have emerged. And these new literacies are embodied in new social practices—ways of working in new or transformed forms of employment, new ways of participating as a citizen in public spaces, and even perhaps, new forms of identity and personality

3literacy curriculum taught to a singular standard (grammar, the literary canon, standard national forms of the language), the everyday experience of meaning making was increasingly one of negotiating discourse differences. A pedagogy of Multiliteracies would need to address this as a fundamental aspect of contemporary teaching and learning.

The world was changing, the communications environment was changing, and it seemed to us to follow that literacy teaching and learning would to have to change, as well.

1994 to talk through what was happening in the world of communications and what was happening, or not happening but perhaps should happen, in the teaching of language and literacy in schools.

The world was changing, the communications environment was changing, and it seemed to us to follow that literacy teaching and learning would to have to change, as well

Project Based Learning (PBL) prepares students for academic, personal, and career success, and readies young people to rise to the challenges of their lives and the world they will inherit.

6 Shows That Perfectly Combine Tech and Text

Creativity is a remix

Make it a policy to always teach a new technology, with new literacies, to your weakest reader(s) first. This enables struggling readers and writers to become literate in this new technology before other, higher-performing students in reading. Those who struggle with reading and writing become literate in a new literacy before others and can teach this new literacy to others who are not literate with this new form. This is a powerful principle that positions weaker readers as experts

However, this does not nec-essarily mean they are skilled in the effective use of online information, perhaps the most important aspect of the Internet. Studies show that stu-dents lack critical evaluation skills when reading online (Bennet, Maton, & Kervin, 2008; Forzani & Maykel, 2013; Graham & Metaxas, 2003) and that they are not especially skilled with reading to locate information online (Kuiper & Volman, 2008).

The most interesting article I read was on how in the past, kids with social anxiety were helped because the need to be part of a group was stronger than the desire to avoid social interaction, so they were forced to fight their anxiety and hang out with other kids. But nowadays, kids can get the same feeling of being part of a group from social media and don’t have to actually interact with people, so their social anxiety never goes away. To fix this, they should just hang out with other people and stay away from social media.

Next topic is screen-time and wellness, I would argue that this topic is the one that affects real life more than any other. I know from experience that technology can be a bit addicting, screen-time can ruin a sleep schedule, which can lead to physical and mental effects, and prolonged use can be unhealthy.

We also hoped  that our students would not only learn self-regulation, but that they would adopt practices associated with “digital leadership” – in other words, using social media for good – a concept promoted by Jennifer Casa-Todd in her book, Social LEADia.

Our intention was that by providing information, resources, and guidelines to their parents, our students would internalize the information themselves.

The information gleaned from the poster presentations and discussions were then incorporated into parent letters that were distributed at back to school night. (Note:  I’m not particularly fond of projects ending in poster fairs, but in this case the poster fair was a means to the ultimate product, letters written to parents).

A few years ago we discovered and started using the resources provided by Common Sense Media at the beginning of the year to jumpstart the dialogue with our students. This resource has terrific age-appropriate resources and lessons. If you aren’t familiar with their website, I highly recommend it.

At my school, our staff also struggles to design the appropriate the balance between freedom and protection; it’s a cost-benefit analysis that sometimes feels impossible to nail.

It can be truly baffling and frustrating.

They're learning that empathy matters in a digital world. They're learning that technology can be used to showcase their talents to a wider audience. They're learning to make the web work for them. They're learning to discern, filter and organize the information they collect. They're learning that transparency and responsible sharing can only help them. They're excited about new challenges daily and learning in a collaborative environment where they are not told what to do, but instead are learning through the decisions they make themselves.

And for all of their hard work and content creation, I am giving every one of them an award; however most of them wouldn't accept it. My students get more excited about their reach and how others react to the content they created. They are excited about this post and how many new users will hopefully visit their website and comment on their video.

hey are discerning between credible and bogus information and understanding how to properly cite, organize and share their findings.

They're employing critical analysis and critical thinking by seeking out the answers to the questions they generate.

They collaborate with their teams, schedule weekly meetings with team leaders or project managers, and we meet as a class to assess the progress and address any questions or problems.

I remind them that this skill is imperative for their future no matter what path they choose.