The debate topic was compelling, and both sides argued their side well. I also went back and forth on this topic even though I voted “against” in the pre-vote and post-vote. My thoughts have changed after reading the articles and watching the Tedtalks chosen by both debate teams. The statement “Social media is ruining childhood” is appropriate for debate but not for this post. The statement for the post needs to be, “How can social media be used, so it doesn’t ruin childhood?”

THOUGHTS FROM CLASS

The agree side chose the article “Associations of early social initiation on digital behaviors and the moderating role of limiting use.” The article stated that social media engagement could provide instrumental and social support if used under the right conditions. (Charmaraman et al., 2022). Eva Amin presented a similar idea in her talk, “Social Media isn’t bad: you’re just using it wrong.” I agree with Eva’s main message: that social media isn’t good or bad, it is how we choose to use it that matters. I also agreed with her points about the concept of welcoming the positivity of social media. Alec shared videos in class on Tuesday that illustrated this. There is something to be said about the power of positive thinking. I felt different after seeing the videos in class, particularly the video of elderly people and teens connecting. It was so moving. It reminded me of this article from CBC news. The elderly people and young children are connecting through face-to-face interactions, and they are not using social media. Yet the message is the same.

I keep going back to my main point that educators must teach about digital literacy as it is in the curriculum This includes how to use social media in safe and healthy ways. Students must be taught about the dangers of social media use, as outlined in the article by Freya India. She poses questions at the end of her article that must be addressed; that “the greatest psychological experiment we’ve ever run on humanity” is happening. It is also true that little is known about the effects of the early use of social technologies on early adolescence. (Charmaraman et al., 2022). More empirical evidence is needed to understand the impacts of digital technologies on younger adolescence and children.

Stories of the positive use of social media need to be shared with students. If we only share stories of the scary side of social media, the students will miss out on half of the story. Sebastián Bortnik defined education as coming from both experiences and knowledge. Students need to be taught how to use social media because it is here and a part of our lives. In class, Alec asked the question if we could go back to life before social media, would we? I admit I am one of the people who said yes, but the reality is that we can’t do that. Adults need to use social media in positive ways and support our children in learning how to do the same. Charmaraman et al. (2022) stated that high parental involvement, in the form of restrictive monitoring of social media use, had positive outcomes for children. This is the best way to ensure the harms of social  technology are mitigated.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

I shared in class that my husband and I gave our 12-year-old daughter her first Iphone and it came with a contract that she had to sign. One of the terms of the contract was that we would take the phone away if she misused the phone. The sad day came this past Friday. My husband was working out of town, and I was going through her texts with her dad on the phone. I saw things that gave us much concern. She was using highly inappropriate language; she was saying mean things about 1 friend to others, a precursor to cyberbullying. She was also texting somebody named “Mr. Beast” which caught my attention. The end result was that I took the phone away until her dad came home. I also got the unenviable job of telling her. After the initial blow-up was over and she had stopped crying (and started talking to me again), she explained what was going on. Her friends were doing those things, and she felt she had to do so as well. She thought that if she didn’t, they would stop being her friend, and then “she would have no one”. A couple of days passed and she said she was glad she had the break from her phone. She didn’t like the person she was becoming, and she was able to think about if she actually wants the other kids as her friends.  She has the phone back with a plan only to use it at certain times. We will see how long this lasts, as there will be more problems, and she will likely have her phone taken away again. I saw my experience with her in the article “Associations of early social initiation on digital behaviors and the moderating role of limiting use.” High levels of parental involvement are necessary to help our kids navigate the world of social technology in healthy ways. I can see why some parents would want to avoid the drama, it is much work! Yet it is so necessary.

My stance on this topic is a repeat of last week’s blog post; technology is a tool, and how it is used is what is important.

This question will be the focus of my post. The statement “Technology in the classroom enhances learning” was appropriate for the debate, and both sides argued their points extremely well. I choose “disagree” in the pre-vote, and “agree’ in the post-vote and have to lean towards the “disagree” side in this post. I appreciated how both sides discussed pedagogy as an important consideration that must be included in the discussion. I remember a speaker I once heard at a Primary Teachers’ Conference. She was an experienced teacher and was speaking of pedagogy. She told a story of “busy work,” In the world of primary teachers, that means things like worksheets and coloring activities. She said that sometimes there is a time and place for busy work; the teacher may need to work one-on-one with an individual student or with a small group of students, and the rest of the class needs to be kept busy. She said that doing this, is not the issue. The real issue is thinking busywork is educationally relevant when it is clearly not. In other words, know why you ask the students to complete activities and ensure they enhance learning. The same can be said for technology; make sure that learning is the end game with whatever techie activity you ask of the students.

I appreciated the depth and breadth of the article “Class, Take Out Your Tablets: The Impact of Technology on Learning and Teaching in Canada”. Thank you for giving us a Canadian-based article! I could relate to the section on broadband connectivity.

“ Many educators noted that smaller or more isolated communities often suffer from limited bandwidth, slow satellite internet technologies, or intermittent service. While it is well-known that there are significant connectivity challenges in northern Canada, several interviewees expressly stated that poor connectivity was a prominent issue on Indigenous reserves and in rural regions, which impacted both students and educators, alike.” (Ivus, M., Quan, T., Snider, N., 2020, p. 24).

Welcome to my life, the times I could not teach because of connectivity issues. This is a real issue in the North and speaks to the fact that access to technology is not equal or equitable. The article should have discussed the reasons why connectivity issues exist in the North, the main one being a lack of competition between companies. Northwestel is the only Internet provider for the North (Okay, there is Elon’s Starlink, but that is a blog post for another day)

I also could relate to the video: Why Technology can’t fix education. I completely agree that technology can not replace the teacher. We are social beings, and we need each other. Our brains are hard-wired to learn from a human face. Take a look at this TedTalk.

Research was completed to understand how babies learn a language, no babies were harmed!  There are around 6000-7000 languages currently spoken on the planet, and babies are born with the ability to speak any of the languages. The research discussed in the Tedtalk shows that babies “take statistics” when they listen to people speak and use the statistics to help them recognize and speak a language. As part of the research babies born to English speakers listened to a person speak Mandarin for 12 sessions, and the babies demonstrated that they learned Mandarin. Another group of babies listened to someone speak Mandarin on a TV, and the third group of babies were exposed to audio only. No learning happened for the babies in the 2^nd and 3^rd groups. The research found that it takes a human being for babies to take their statistics. This does not change once kids enter school, they continue to learn best from a human being.

My final point also relates to how our young learners learn best. There is an early learning teaching philosophy called “Reggio Emilia”. There is too much to say about Reggio in this blog post but central to the philosophy is that the teaching environment is the 3^rd teacher (the other 2 teachers are the child and the educator). If one believes this to be true, then what educators DO in the classroom matters. Our teaching methods (pedagogy), the curriculum, the learning materials, and the technology used in classrooms matter. Teaching is the art and science of creating relationships. Technology can assist in this but can not replace the human connection that is at the heart of teaching. Will and Mike shared a great metaphor in their opening statement when they compared technology to a carpenter’s tool belt. Technology is one tool that teachers have, and it is important that it is used correctly.

It seems that the conversation around ChatGPT is everywhere. I posted on Ummey’s blog (or at least I thought I did, I can’t see my post) this CBC news article about how ChatGPT may change the world of work. I also shared this youtube video that outlines how you can use ChatGPT to help you sell stuff on-line.

Now there is this news article writing a cautionary tale about romance scams. Is nothing sacred? ChapGPT seems to be everywhere…..