“So
you see Mum, I can learn stuff from Electronic games", Quinn tells me after school.
I
think it is sad that Daycare centres have electronic devices. In the past, I
have visited different daycares to pick up friends’ children for them. These children are sitting unsupervised, in front of
a screen, just pressing the same button again and again and again. When I have
asked the caregivers how long they have been having screen time, their
off-hand, “oh about half an hour, maybe more”, was not acceptable to me. The Caregivers didn’t really know, and I
doubt the parents have any idea how much time their child has spent in front of
a screen that day, that week. I don’t think they really cared. Looking back, I
am really glad my children’s daycare didn’t have screen time. They played
and they explored, and discovered, and learned.
My children watch movies and play electronic
games. They can earn screen time, and screen time can be taken
away. However, the screen has
never been a “baby sitter”. I am
sad and concerned that my childen’s peers just sit and stare at a screen for
hours, and don’t experience life, and the incredible world around them. I always
enjoy the extra urchins around after school and on the weekends. They know they just can’t play Xbox or
watch a movie, they have to play outside. Perhaps that is why they want to
visit?
Quinn’s class has been selected to trial electronic
devices for the rest of the year.
I am uncertain how this will improve his class’s level of learning. Sure, they can get on the internet and
do research for topics, but, I am unclear of the knowledge outcomes, and how
these are going to be measured.
Copy and Pasting, and downloading, disenfranchises me from learning the knowledge, how is
it going to affect the childen?
Will the excitement of discovering something new, be lost in the “copy
and paste” for the assignment?
Recently Quinn achieved a Year 9 assessment for a
story at school. He is in Year
6. What made his story “advanced”
for his years. He set the story in
Italy, His characters spoke Italian phrases, as well as English. He made reference to historical figures. Different towns and cities were described. His teacher discovered that one of the Character names he chose, has
Italian history, (Quinn didn’t know that at the time, he just made the name up, it
sounded Italian).
Even though Quinn has never been to Italy, his brain
has. For the last month, Quinn has been playing an Xbox game set in 15th
Century, Italy. As a parent, I
have been wondering, would Quinn have been able to learn all this from a
book. Yes, he could, but honestly, I
don’t think he would have been interested. This past month we have discussed elements from the game; Leonardo di Vinci, his
inventions, the different towns, and architecture styles in Italy, which led to other places I had visited in Europe. These have been intense interesting conversations, and we
have used the internet to explore deeper into these topics. Yep, we used technology.
His
friends also play the same game.
They were surprised when they recognised fragments from the game, when
the teacher read his story out. It
didn’t occur to them to take the information off the screen.
So
I have to agree Quinn, you can learn stuff from Electronic games, but I believe
that the child has to want to extend the information provided on the screen,
and use it in other contexts. Quinn's new game is set in the Caribbean, and we are both learning a lot of Geography.
