Preschoolers addicted to smartphones and tablets-Is it a bad thing?

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Adult teaching use of iPad to toddlers

'Four-year-old addicted to iPad' 
‘Preschoolers treated on digital detox diets’
'Shocking rise in children hooked on using smartphones and tablets'
— read the headlines of articles featuring in newspapers around the world during April following reports of a British preschooler spending up to four hours a day on her iPad.

Should we be concerned about device-use or how we let children use the device?

Should we be concerned? And if so, do these concerns arise from the iPad or the way adults allow children to use the device?

Certainly, if tablets are only being used as ‘iBabysitter’ devices, where children watch videos and e-books are ‘read’ aloud, then referral to ‘screen-time’ research is relevant. We need, however, to move past the notion of ‘screen-time’ when these devices are used in ways that encourage interaction and creativity, as this level of interaction demands more of the user than just watching the screen.

Research shows the benefits of tablets

Modern mobile devices, such as iPads and tablets, have been around for just over three years, so research around their use in early childhood education has been relatively limited. Early research is showing that when used well, and in moderation, there are benefits to iPads as a tool for learning, even with young children. Quality open-ended applications afford young children early learning opportunities when they engage, interact, and create in new ways on these devices, particularly when offered as part of a well-balanced environment.

In 2010, UNESCO reported that new technologies (such as tablets) are important in supporting the creativity of young children. In part, this is because technology is changing the way we operate as a society. We see this change reflected in young children’s play. How often do you see young children playing with a phone and putting it up to their ear to speak? Instead, children generally press the buttons to ‘text’, imitating the actions of the adults they see around them. This is an important point: if we want children to be technologically healthy we need to think about their exposure to these tools.

How children use these devices starts with us

This exposure starts with us:

  • How do we interact with our technology?
  • What messages are we sending to children through the way we interact with these devices?
  • How often do we sit and text others instead of engaging with those in the same room?
  • Do we model healthy use of technology?

Further exposure occurs in the range of mobile devices and accessories that are marketed to parents of young children that suggest that these are ‘must-have’ items for early learning. An example of just how extreme some of this marketing is can be seen in the ’i-Potty’ – a toilet training potty that incorporates an iPad stand. This device might suit some, but I would question just how much valued learning would come from the iPad in this situation.

Balance—like anything in life—is essential to being healthy.

For young children (and even older ones), four hours a day is a significant chunk of time to be spent on any one tool or activity—particularly if there is little interaction.  It is up to us to ensure our young children are healthy and have a range of experiences.

it is up to us to ensure that young children are healthy and have a range of experiences.

Tara, along with Tania Coutts have completed a small research report into iPads in ECE, and together they co-author the Exploring Apps blog.

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Ten Trends 2013: Data Engagement

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Ten Trends 2013: Data engagement from EDtalks on Vimeo.

One of the significant trends of the last few years has been in what’s called “big data”, and our increasing ability to manipulate, access, and use the huge amounts of digital data that now exist.

IBM reports that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. The way this data is accessed and used is a hot topic at the moment. We’re talking about:

  • data that comes from sensors gathering climate information
  • our posts and activity on social media sites
  • our digital pictures and videos, our purchase records
  • our search history
  • our cell phone GPS signals
  • and so on.

So, where information, in the past, was confined to print and oral communications, it’s now accessible in a range of new ways. And engagement with data is now increasingly an active rather than a passive experience.

Drivers for the trend

One of the drivers in this trend is the need to make our interaction with the massive amounts of data accessible, and our growing expectation that we can all use this data to aid analysis and make useful predictions.

Data visualization makes data engagement much easier. You’ll be familiar with the use of infographics and new forms of graphical data representation. With the creative ways that huge amounts of data can be represented and easily manipulated means there are opportunities for improved understanding and interpretation. This clearly benefits students as well as teachers.

Impact of data engagement

We read that big data has the potential to revolutionise the way students learn, and teachers teach. One impact is in the future of search, and the semantic web. Google is the best example of this:

  • We have got used to asking Google pretty much anything, and expecting it to provide the answer we need.
  • Google is in possession of, not only the billions of pages of the world wide web, but is photographing all the world’s streets, scanning all the world’s books, and collecting every video uploaded to the public internet. Google has accumulated voice recordings in many languages and dialects in order to power its translation and voice recognition projects. It is doing the same for face recognition in films and photographs. Then there’s the great mass of information Google possesses regarding the interests, and communications, and movements, and search history of just about everyone with an internet connection.
  • Google Now will tell you traffic conditions, flight details, the weather—before you ask it, based on your location and search history.  “Google Glass” a headband that projects a screen on the edge of your field of vision, has cameras, search, social media apps answering to voice-activated commands.
  • This year, Google also rolled out what it calls its Knowledge Graph—a database of the 500 million most searched-for people, places, and things. For each one of these, it’s established an associative context, making it more valuable than just a string of words or a piece of data. Searching is more and more closely related to thinking.

Big data implications

Of course, the benefits of all of this is related to the way we access and use this data. In education, ‘big data’ is being used for learning analytics and research.

With the growth of massive open online courses, tertiary institutions have an entirely new range of data at their disposal, which could provide even greater insights. One of the ways educators might use this is in analysing the performance and skill-level of individual students, and then creating personalised learning experiences that meet their needs.

So, lecturers could monitor a whole range of different factors regarding student performance—including the amount of time needed to answer questions, which sources they use, which questions they skipped, how much research was done, which tips work best for which student, and so on.

And big data can also help to create more effective groups of students. Often students work in groups where the members are not complimentary. But with algorithms and data it will be possible to determine the strengths and weaknesses of individual students based on the way they learned, how, and which questions they answered, their social profile, and so on. This will create stronger groups and deliver better group results.

On a personal level:

  • You might consider introducing infographics as a presentation alternative for your students, and definitely point them to data visualisations for them to interpret.
  • You could explore ways to use the open data sources that are now available—Government data, population data, social, weather and news data can all be integrated into learning.
  • Check out some of the links that are provided at the bottom of this page.

So, along with the steady increase in the data that’s going to be available to us, there’ll also be a steady increase in the opportunities and advantages for learning that the new forms of data engagement and data manipulation will provide for teachers and students.

Questions:

  • What advantages and opportunities do the new forms of data manipulation provide for teachers and students?
  • What use are you making of the open data sources that are now available?
  • What provision are you making for the new forms of interaction design that are emerging in your thinking for the future?

Examples and links:

For more about the Ten Trends:

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A mighty totara has fallen

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Vince Ham

Takoto mai e te rangtira kua mau kawakawa te tihi o Aoraki maunga. E tangi hotu te ngākau o tō whānau o Core i tō wehenga atu me te māuiui kua kawe e koe i ngā tau tata. Makere atu i ngā mamaetanga ka aro tō titiro i ngā mahi papai kua mahia e koe tēnei mātou e mihi.

Ka rere hoki te mihi ki tōna whānau ki a Ronnie ki ōna tamariki kia piki te ora me te māramatanga ki a rātou.

It is with the deepest sadness and respect for a splendid friend, trusted colleague, and hugely loved "original" of our company, that we write to say that Dr Vince Ham has passed away at home today, surrounded by the love and thoughts of his family and friends.

Vince's last days have been in the company of his wider whānau as well as his closest blended family and Ronnie who all love him dearly. His fight against cancer and its effects have taken their toll on his body while he remained with us, a man of enormous strength, integrity, and foresight. We know that the messages of support and the shared memories from our team have also been reflected in the massive response from the many friends and colleagues who he has touched in some way over the years. Vince was planning, thinking, caring, and loving throughout the past months, weeks and days, with a strength that was amazing and so very typical of him throughout his life with us.

As we remember Vince we see the mark of the man printed in the soul of our company. He has been the guardian of our vision, and of the values upon which the company is based. There will, as long as CORE exists, remain that imprint of a great man, with a huge love of life and a wide and inclusive vision for learning and education, at the heart of our company.

Our loss of Vince is profound, and our hearts go out to his wife Ronnie and his wider family/whānau right now. A mighty totara has fallen in the forest of Tane. We all share the loss and send our love and thoughts.

Ngā mihi aroha ki a koutou

CORE Education Staff

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“Naumai ki tō Parihakatanga”

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Photo of Parihaka pah entrance

How can 21st century tools enhance the weave of the cultural lens? What impact can these tools have on 21st century indigenous classrooms whose culture is sourced in oral tradition, whakapapa (genealogical ties and kinship), tikanga (process and protocols for living), reo (language of body, tinana and environment), and wairua (spiritual well-being)? How can the gifts, talents, and strengths you bring enrich the lives and experiences of Māori students, whānau, hapū, and iwi in their respective rohe? Are you making a difference in the cultural presence of the classroom, school, or educational setting you work in?

Take some time to consider my thoughts…

Never will I forget Wharehoka Wano entering Tamatekapua to help me mourn the loss of my dad. How my tears fell on my dad’s face as I reminded him of Whare’s loss just two weeks before. “Tukua mai kia piri, tukua mai kia tata, e hoa so that our tears may mingle together. Returning to Parihaka so I could be cleansed by the winds that sweep down from the summit of Taranaki, I knew I was ready to do this and pay homage to the people of Parihaka.

When the opportunity arose to have our next CORE Māori whanau hui at Parihaka I was already there. Parihaka—the name as majestic in my mind as Taranaki himself—had always captured my imagination, and I wanted to hear their story, not from a book, a DVD, or a digital device, but in the collective voices of the land, the sea, and the ever-present spirit of the people both present and beyond.

“Naumai ki tō Parihakatanga…”

Photo of Whare speaking to the group

These four words of greeting from Whare haunted my second visit to Parihaka. Literally the words translate as ‘Welcome to your Parihakatanga (or your Parihaka-ness)”. I wondered if these words meant that lying dormant within me was a genetic memory of having been here before, which I could now reclaim. Or, was this an invitation to share my whakapapa (genealogical links) and ancestral histories, leaving me with my own understanding of how, too, I am a descendant of Parihaka’s legacy?

Parihaka!  My mind swam in a wave of words and images. Scratch the surface of this peaceful settlement and the scars of land-loss, exile, and settler-greed are still present. The mark of any colonizing force—military, masses, and missionaries had forever cornered this niche of prized real estate in the annals of New Zealand’s history. To look upon the hill where the colonial forces rode down with their preordained agenda on the peaceful inhabitants below, I couldn’t help but feel the warrior DNA rise in me. Yet the people of Parihaka stood staunch and true. Not one hand raised in aggression, the resistance passive, unlike the ancestral ‘utu’ gene that surged within me.

Entering Te Niho o Te Atiawa I was captivated by the tupuna lining the walls. Pride radiates from within the picture frames revealing faces resolute of spirit, resilient in will, and loyal to the descendant obligations to whenua. To know the people of Parihaka and its origins is to understand the impact of mass confiscation, and the dispossession of a people from their land. Like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, so, too, did Parihaka and its people. Our group wove our way through the village, stopping momentarily to bathe in tribal memory and be moved by stories both tragic and heroic.

tohu-house

Te Whiti o Rongomai and his uncle Tohu Kākahi are two Parihaka leaders revered in this corner of the world. Two prophetic visionaries whose peace-loving leadership, influenced by Christian teachings, prohibited the use of arms. They condemned violence and challenged the colonial government over the wars, land confiscations, and punitive policies ratified by the settler government. Their call to arms in the face of injustice was a call to civil disobedience with the use of the plough.

“Go, put your hands to the plough. Look not back. If any come with guns and swords, be not afraid. If they smite you, smite not in return. If they rend you, be not discouraged. Another will take up the good work.” (Te Whiti to his ploughmen, June 1879).

It is said that Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by the teachings of Te Whiti and Te Tohu—just saying!

The first of the Parihaka ploughmen sent to Dunedin in 1879 were part of an attempt, which began at Opunake, to resist the unjust confiscations of land through civil disobedience. This act of rebellion legislated in law saw them become land owning prisoners to landless survivors. It is not surprising that the stone masonry skills they learnt during their enforced labour were brought back to Parihaka. Evidence can be seen in the stone structures and walls still standing today. Taking it all in was personally disquieting—attack, rape, incarceration, enforced labour, condoned legislative Treaty violations.

Photo of Mt Taranaki

I turned to address Taranaki. My words were inaudible punctured only by solemn tears as I cried to Papatuanuku, listened to Tawhirimatea’s stories, and mingled with the spirits whose voices were whispers everywhere.

How the people have overcome this adversity and continue the legacy of peaceful compromise today is awe-inspiring. The 18th day of every month is celebrated every year, and is a forum where the iwi meet to maintain the traditions and teachings associated with Parihaka. As related to us, the 18th marked the first day arms were used against the people of Taranaki at Waitara. The legacy of living in harmony with the land and people from other nations continues today. The annual Peace Festival is an example.

Inevitably, any journey to Parihaka begins and ends farewelling those who lie peacefully in the urupa. It is with this in mind that my thoughts turn to Maata Wharehoka, and one of the most poignant and moving discussions I have ever been privileged to be a part of. She talked of the dying legacy of her husband Te Ru Wharehoka. While very sick he disclosed his wishes for his tangihanga to draw on ancient customs and traditional methods only. Committing to their fruition, they had six months. What moved me to tears was how important it was for the wairua of Te Ru to be at peace and spoken to both before and after his passing. He was at peace and present right through to the time of his spiritual return to Hawaiiki. To prepare, preserve, and prime everyone for his burial has now resulted in these teachings being shared with whanau, hapū, and iwi across Aotearoa. How special it was to allow Te Ru the dignity of designing his own passing in his remaining days. How visionary of Te Ru that now these practices are being maintained and taught today.

As my thoughts return to this korero I can only think of my colleagues in CORE who have suffered losses recently. As I watched a colleague walk down the aisle behind her husband, the white feathers adorning her hat were reminiscent of the symbol of peace at Parihaka. My silent wish that her husband’s wairua was able to depart cloaked in a korowai of unconditional love feathered by the plumes of an albatross. E te rau o titapu okioki atu nei…

…so, how would you share in the world of your Māori students?

And so these meanderings in to my mind inevitably turn to our core business as professionals and practitioners in education. The Parihaka I came to know had its own stories and songs born of the land. The mountain’s distinctiveness is manifest in its people, in the birds that wander in from off the sea breezes, and the snow-kissed breath of Taranaki. How would you respond to the Māori student who invites you to share in their world, and commune in such a way that your culture is embraced and welcomed to its own Parihakatanga-ness.

We are challenged in our educational settings to realise the potential of Māori learners, to nurture their inherent capabilities, and accept the cultural advantage they bring to our classrooms just by being Maori. Would your relationship or approach change if you found out that the cultural location of one of your students was from Taranaki, or they were a descendant of Te Whiti or Te Tohu? How might stories from localised settings you work in influence the curriculum design of a school? What of the stories in the areas you work in? Is cultural distinctiveness present or acknowledged in the work you do?

In your field of expertise in curriculum design, art of facilitation, blended e-learning, UDL, IT innovation, thought leadership, or where the craft of teaching and/or transforming 21st century classrooms falls upon you to lead, how do you see yourself enhancing the cultural distinctiveness of Parihaka to make a difference to the intergenerational experiences of your clientele?

My invitation has been to invite you to share my Parihakatanga, in my voice, and see how the work you do might offer a way to connect and share in the intricacies of cultural intellect, knowledge and epistemology from whichever New Zealand setting you work within.

Nō reira, e te rangatira, e Whare, nei rā te mihi maioha o Ngongotahā ki Taranaki maunga. Tū tonu, tū tonu, Te Atiawa e!  Whare, with utmost humility I thank you for inviting us in to your world, and sharing the significance of your ancestral home. To know you is to know whom you represent. To appreciate your cultural lens is to pause for a moment, and step on to your surfboard and ride the waves of prophetic wisdom, pacifism, and martyrdom.

“Just as night is the bringer of day, so too is death and struggle the bringer of life”
– Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi

Photo of walking to Parihaka

References:

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Pasifika in Parihaka

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Manu Faaea-Semeatu recently visited the Parauka Marae with the Pasifika Team as part of the CORE Maori Hui, with kaihautu Wharehoka Wano and Deanne Thomas. Here are her reflections at the end of her visit.

Montage of Parauka Marae visit

You wouldn't normally see those two words together in a headline, because Pasifika people were not part of the historical events that took place in Parihaka's story.

Sitting in the wharenui, in Parauka Marae, I can't help but wonder how Te Whiti and Tohu would feel about having Pasifika people in their space, because they were such staunch proponents of Maori tikanga, and the prophets wouldn't have known any Pasifika people in their lifetime.

Even looking up at their pictures in the wharenui, I see their eyes looking at me, asking me to think about my own people. What legacy will Pasifika people leave in Aotearoa?

I can feel the mana and the wairua of the place. In my mind's eye as Wharehoka Wano took us through the whenua and showed us the landmarks of his home, I saw children playing games, young warriors with their feathers in their hair, women gathering food and singing waiata. I can also hear marching, a cannon being dragged and pushed to the top of a hill.

I studied New Zealand History in 7th form History at high school. I remember one trip we took was to Meremere, to visit pa sites, and even a colonial museum, to see what settler life was like in early New Zealand.

Nothing would prepare me for the spirit of Parihaka. It reminds me of Samoa, of my own villages where family live in a communal space, make decisions together—and even have the same divisions when conflict, both external and internal, become apparent.

Today we are leaving Parihaka. I wanted to retrace the steps that Wharehoka took us through yesterday, so I woke up early to revisit where he lead us. I stood again at Te Whiti's memorial, and I could hear chanting in the distance, morning karakia in whispered tones carried up to me on the wind. In an instant, the wind started howling, but I felt enveloped in warmth. Suddenly, I remembered what Wharehoka had mentioned yesterday, he talked about tororanui—like the wingspan of an albatross, the people of Parihaka, of many iwi from the North were enveloped by the warmth of Te Whiti and Tohu.

Pasifika in Parihaka, we now understand why there are so many beautiful waiata and stories about this place, being here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

 

Photos (from the top):
(1) Tohu's house
(2) Parauka Marae—where we stayed
(3) Teanau Tuiono and Anthony Faitaua with Mt. Taranaki in the background
(4) Te Whiti's memorial
(5) Te Whiti's gravestone

 

 

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