Day 7: 12th Dec 2013
It has been an on going conflict in today's generation of parents as to how much exposure their kids should get from technology. Apart from being seen and heard through internet, one more important aspect of human's intellectual and emotional growth is changing. It is called education. Learning is not the same anymore. Today's youth is not confined to books, pens and pencils.
I remember, while moving to our new house, it was more important to get internet connection even before arranging for drinking water. With so much reliance on using technology in our day to day lives, how can we expect our kids to stay away from such glorified gadgets. Books are being transformed into e-book readers like kindle. The idea of going to a library is getting obsolete and is being overtaken by downloading books at our finger tips. Touch and feel factor is missing as kids are getting used to seeing nature on screen through laptops and i pads. Information is available in abundance, how to extract the most usable part is a challenge. We are more comfortable with getting our queries answered from strangers on the social networking websites instead of taking advantage of wisdom and experience of people in our own homes. Is it fair to expect from our kids to listen and follow our thought process and suggestions at the same time?
Reliance on teachers is getting shifted to information available on internet making students more independent in doing research on a topic. But there are certain repercussions like plagiarism and misuse of information. Here we as parents and teachers play a major role in helping youth to choose what is morally right or wrong. With smart boards and presentations, the learning is getting more visual and active. It is further giving students to choose between virtual or physical classroom. Virtual learning will definitely give the convenience of independence and make education more approachable but at the same time loose the face to face interaction between student and teacher and collaborative learning with peers.
-a concerned teacher and a parent
A timely and necessary post, Abha. And, I will take some time to respond with my views. In the meanwhile, here's a related and very relevant post you can check out:http://www.handsfreemama.com/2013/07/23/to-love-protect-a-child-in-a-digital-world/
ReplyDeleteThanks Shailaja for the enlightinening post. It is truly an eye opener for a mom of a 2 year old who wants herself to be prepared before hand from making my kid realise the right and wrongs of cyber world.
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