Working at my Intern Office Back in 2010 @ Community Works

Now, I’ll start off by being honest. It completely freaks me out when I see toddlers using their parent’s Smartphone’s better than the parent themselves. It just baffles me, and I become uncomfortable. Call me old fashioned but I think that children from ages 1- 10 are too young to be using Smart- phones, tablets and other such devices on their own. Why might you ask? Well it has to do with what’s online.

Toddlers are not taught what’s right or what’s wrong, most of the time they are experimenting with the technology. But experimentation might lead them to dangerous sites and dangerous habits.

In my Digital Media Literacy Seminar, we had a class of Upperclassmen studying Education come in and help us prepare lesson plans.

The turn that my group’s lesson plan took was that we focused on wanting Children to know that the things they do online do have repercussions. I remember one of the questions I came up with was “How much is too much?” How does a child know when saying something has gone too far? Can we really expect a toddler to be able to filter themselves?

These questions might seem extreme for some but really they are serious questions. The Internet is a world of endless possibilities and few restrictions, so how do we know that a Child has the correct internet mannerisms to go about using the internet unsupervised?

These are all really questions that spur from the debate of technology being used in schools. I think that there is a time and place for everything. Some classes have added technology use that is truly unnecessary. Other’s make great use of the technology – it depends on the teacher and it depends on the class. However, in general, I think there are benefits to having technology in the classroom. I just believe that before you can place technology in a child’s hand, that child needs to be taught the proper eicute on how to navigate the internet in a positive way that won’t have negative consequences for them in the future.

No one wants a boss to find a Facebook profile of a graduate student whose been tagged in way too many pictures parting – that would seem like the graduate is irresponsible. Being taught how to navigate through the internet from the beginning will possibly help avoid such situations.

I suggest that schools take into consideration an “Internet Etiquette” class. Some schools are already implementing such lessons into their classrooms, like MUMS in the town of Middlebury, Vermont. Such implementations can only make the usage of the internet safer for children and more beneficial in their overall life.