For this week's reading, I came across two distinct articles that relates to 'Online Collaboration'. The first article I read was "Students discovering online collaboration" and the second article was "Online Collaboration Tools".
The reason why I say these articles are distinct is because the first article speaks of current collaboration tools that is presented to first-graders and the second article speaks of tools that were available before broadband. Nevertheless, I found them very interesting, it provided me a time-line and a vision of how far internet capabilities have come.
I think its great and a clever idea to introduce these collaborative tools to kids early. But I do share some concerns with Kristen Alloway. For example, kids using nonauthoritative sources, accessing inappropriate materials and giving out personal information online.
However, when it comes to technology and kids, I'm amazed. Its like they were programmed at birth with the manuals in their brains so when they are presented with any given technology they have no fear. For instance, my niece is 8 years old and she's asking me for help with her research paper. She was complaining that she was having difficulties finding reputable sites to reference. So I said, why not go to the library. And guess what she did...she laughed at me! Then I had my other niece from London who came to visit me last summer. She's 4 years old and claimed to be a Michael Jackson fan. So just to prove how much of a fan she was, she began singing a lot of his songs from way back. I was amazed and asked where did she learn that...she said YouTube. Now my question is 'how does a 4 years old with no older siblings know how to use the internet?'
Sunday, March 21, 2010
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Very well written post. It's truly amazing how connected young kids are to the internet...some of them prolly know how to navigate the web better than their parents. I fear the day when elementary school kids have blackberrys/iphones.
ReplyDeleteSchools can help control what sites students are able to visit but its tough to block every inappropriate site on the web, theres alot of em.
Children are becoming more and more savvy than the previous generation before them. It is amazing to see how 1st graders are doing what we did years and years later.
ReplyDeleteDo you see any downside to this early exposure to online collaboration?
The Internet offers endless possibilities as children are usually curious individuals who love to explore. There are bound to be online predators and computer viruses, but the major concern is security. It is the parents’ responsibility to educate their children and make sure they don’t access unauthoritative sites and inappropriate sites. Other than that, it is a great idea to prepare children early on as they tend to pick up things faster.
ReplyDeleteAs a response to City 8s' question, the only downside I see is security. I'm not trying to be funny, but I think that some of these kids may become interested in hacking activities. So far, the news has reported a few cases. But I could be wrong or I could be right. Like I remember when I was in high school, the only reason I was so interested in my Information Technology class was because I thought that I would discover how to hack into other systems. I thought that would be cool. But not to worry, I lost interest in that...I promise you I'm seriously into web designing.
ReplyDeleteI think a downside early exposure could be how children end up using the technology. They could end up losing the proper work ethic to get things done, instead relying on the internet to get everything done for themselves.
ReplyDelete