Technology

Technology in the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:59:00 +0000

using the technology of today, in the classroom today,

(Early Childhood Today: Are young children's brains (ages three through six) well suited to the use of technology? (We define technology as children using cameras, computers, tape recorders and video cameras in classroom projects.) If so, how? Are some forms of technology better than others for these specific age levels?)

In order to answer that question we must consider some of the genetic biases of the human brain. For 99 percent of the time we have been on the planet, we lived in small hunter-gatherer groups of about 40 to 50 people. Our brains developed specialized capabilities for social affiliation, communication and various kinds of symbolic representation. Our cultures evolved through social interactions, initially without written language. The development of written language changed the way human beings developed, in large part by influencing brain development and expressed new brain-mediated capabilities that had previously been un-expressed.

I see technology doing the same things today. The brain clearly could not have a "genetics" specific for the use of a joystick. Nor could the brain have a genetics specific for continuous attention to a two-dimensional moving image such as those in the television. Yet external symbolic representation such as the written word, visual images on television, and complex three-dimensional videography are all sensed, processed, stored, and acted on by the human brain. Because the brain literally changes in response to experiences, these "new" (from a historical perspective) experiences (the written word or television) cause changes in brain development, brain organization, and brain function that were never expressed hundreds of generations ago.
Modern technologies are very powerful because they rely on one of the most powerful genetic biases we do have — the preference for visually presented information. The human brain has a tremendous bias for visually presented information. Television, movies, videos, and most computer programs are very visually oriented and therefore attract and maintain the attention of young children.

The problem with this is that many of the modern technologies are very passive. Because of this they do not provide children with the quality and quantity of crucial emotional, social, cognitive, or physical experiences they require when they are young. The developing child requires the right combination of these experiences at the right times during development in order to develop optimally. This cannot happen if the child is sitting for hours passively watching television.

Sitting young children in front of a television for hours also prevents that child from having hours of other developmental experiences. Children need real-time social interactions; technology such as television can prevent that from happening.

On the other hand there are many positive qualities to modern technologies. The technologies that benefit young children the greatest are those that are interactive and allow the child to develop their curiosity, problem solving and independent thinking skills.

(Do you see the use of specific things like computers as part of an early childhood curriculum as being powerful enough to change brain development the same way you've just described television?)

Absolutely. I think the difference between computers and television is that television tends to be quite passive. You sit and you are watching and things are happening in front of you but you don't do anything. Children are natural "manipulators" of the world — they learn through controlling the movement and interactions between objects in their world — dolls, blocks, toy cars, their own bodies. With television, they watch and do not control anything. Computers allow interaction. Children can control the pace and activity and make things happen on computers. They can also repeat an activity again and again if they choose.

(As you look at 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds being offered opportunities like using cameras and tape recorders and video cameras in the classroom, do you think that based on your comments earlier on how children develop with real-time activities, do you think they have the capability of understanding and using those tools well?)

That's actually a really good question. Preschool children are still having significant cognitive growth. In a very real sense, children think differently than adults. This is so because their brains have not yet completely developed. So to tape a conversation and replay it for an adult means something entirely different than when a three-year-old hears their voice on a tape. These experiences can be very positive and mind-expanding for a child — as long as they are done at the right time.

Children need real-life experiences with real people to truly benefit from available technologies. Technologies should be used to enhance curriculum and experiences for children. Children have to have an integrated and well-balanced set of experiences to help them grow into capable adults that can handle social-emotional interactions as well as develop their intellectual abilities.

I think that balance and timing are the keys to healthy development. Provide the right kinds of experiences at the right time. For example, if you take a newborn and do not hold that infant and put her in a seventh grade classroom and leave her for the afternoon, it's not a good experience. It can actually be abusive. But, if you take the 14-year-old child and rather than having them spend the afternoon in school, you hold and rock them all afternoon, that is not the right experience at the right time for that child. When a six-month-old child is strapped into a chair in front of a videotape designed to teach them a different language, that is a different experience than an eight-year-old child listening to the same tape. The infant's experience would be totally inappropriate, but the eight-year-old's may be great. What's important is when experience is provided and how it's mixed in with other crucial experiences.

( Your comments begin to address an issue that's important today. As we move into the 21st century with pressure to gain experiences in technology, specifically computers, would you address how parents and early childhood educators could specifically work together to create this balance for young children?)

While technology can help us teach children, in the end our children learn from us. Parents and teachers must act as facilitators in children's learning. For example, sitting down together and using playing cards is a very cognitive experience. They can learn how to add, they can learn how to predict, they can laugh, and they can learn how to win. In their interaction with a parent they're using this externalized object which is a playing card and a game. A very similar thing can happen with emerging technologies. I believe parents and teachers can take advantage of the interactive qualities of a computer to enhance the experiences available to children.
As parents think about the future they need to realize two things: technology is not going to go away and we are in the midst of a major sociocultural quantum shift. These technologies are revolutionizing the world our children will live in. So our task is to balance appropriate skill-development with technologies with the core principles and experiences necessary to raise healthy children.

We must keep the core principles of healthy development in mind as we incorporate these technology and tools. If we do that we'll be fine. And at the heart of any healthy child is the opportunity for enriching and nurturing interactions with other human beings. I think the key to making technologies healthy is to make sure that we use them to enhance or even expand our social interactions and our view of the world as opposed to using them to isolate and create an artificial world.

Unfortunately, technology is often used to replace social situations and I would rather see it used to enhance human interactions. And I think that can happen.

( Earlier you began to discuss some of the pitfalls that you see with respect to using technology with children. Do you have any other thoughts or anything you would specifically like to cover there?)

One of the obvious issues that all parents and even the people that develop multimedia material struggle with is controlling access to content that may not be developmentally appropriate. There are going to be computer programs and sites on the Internet and television shows that have content that may be appropriate for an 18-year-old, but very inappropriate for a preschool child. It means that in an environment where there is not parental control or the possibility for supervision, a child may have access to content that has extreme violence or presents inappropriate or destructive concepts such as racism, misogyny, or age-inappropriate sexuality. In the end, as with all other tools, adults must protect children from misuse or inappropriate access.

As we begin to create more child-sensitive television, for example, we will have to recognize that young children will understand in different ways from adults. For example, a 4-year-old child seeing the Oklahoma bombing — or a plane crash coverage on the news multiple times may think that buildings are blowing up all over the place and many planes crashed — rather than understanding that these multiple stories are actually from single events. And so access to information that is developmentally appropriate is something that we need to be very concerned about.

( Would you address how you see specific opportunities for the use of technology to support children, say with special needs, are at-risk or who need assistance with language development?)

Yes, in fact we have seen the use of technology here work very well to help children. The use of specialized computer programs has really helped a lot of kids that we work with. Even on the simplest level, if a child has some sort of fine motor or large motor problem so that their handwriting is very immature and very slow and looks sloppy, their esteem about their work product or their homework is very low. So they may be very reluctant to work hard because they always get negative feedback. They hand in papers that are all messy. You put them on a word processor and they can hand in papers that are clean and neat and they can see how to spell words correctly. Just very simple, non-specialized, software can be very helpful if used in the right way.

In addition, there are a number of specialized programs that allow children with certain information-processing problems to get a multimedia presentation of content so that they can better understand and process the material. They are able to see the written words and see a visual image and hear the sounds — all at the same time. Combining these sensory-modalities helps a child to more efficiently internalize information about a topic. If they have, for example, an auditory processing difficulty or a reading disorder they may be very bright but they don't read very efficiently so if something is read to them on a CD-ROM with visual images they are better able to internalize the information. This helps these children feel better about themselves because they perform better. They're not as afraid of school anymore.

There are emerging technologies used in traditional video games (e.g., Sega, Nintendo) that our group is trying to get dedicated to alternative interactive games with more stimulating but non-violent themes. We are hoping to use a variety of game-like models to teach kids language, to teach children about self-esteem, to teach children about the impact of trauma and how it can be overcome, for example. I think that when these technologies are actually used for more than entertainment we're going to see tremendous positive benefits.
Even now there are a number of good software programs with a primary educational focus on mathematics or reading. These programs, which are very engaging, challenge children to read better and learn how to solve math problems. When information is presented in a fun and engaging way, it is a lot easier than looking at a single page that has a bunch of columns of numbers you're supposed to add up.

Robotics

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:39:00 +0000

First robotics,

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. Robotics is related to the sciences of electronics, engineering, mechanics mechatronics, and software.

The concept and creation of machines that could operate autonomously dates back to classical times, but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow substantially until the 20th century. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as we continue to research, design, and build new robots that serve various practical purposes, whether domestically, commercially, or militarily.

The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robotscreatures who can be mistaken for humans – though they are closer to the modern ideas of androids. Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionaryin which he named his brother Josef Čapek as its actual originator.

In 1927 the Maschinenmensch ("machine-human") gynoid humanoid robot (also called "Parody", "Futura", "Robotrix", or the "Maria impersonator") was the first and perhaps the most memorable depiction of a robot ever to appear on film was played by German actress Brigitte Helm) in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis.

In 1942 the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov formulated his Three Laws of Robotics and, in the process of doing so, coined the word "robotics" (see details in "Etymology" section below).

In 1948 Norbert Wiener formulated the principles of cybernetics, the basis of practical robotics.

Fully autonomous robots only appeared in the second half of the 20th century. The first digitally operated and programmable robot, the Unimate, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them. Commercial and industrial robots are widespread today and used to perform jobs more cheaply, or more accurately and reliably, than humans. They are also employed in jobs which are too dirty, dangerous, or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly, packing and packaging, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, safety, and the mass production of consumer and industrial goods.

Technology News

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:55:00 +0000

Find out the technology todays,

Our Adventures With Robotics: The Lego Mindstorms Kit

I have a daughter who wants to design robots. She used to want to be an astronaut, and now she thinks that maybe she’d still like to go into space, but “only for a year or so,” since she’s discovered it could be a dangerous job.

Fuse Antibacterial Screen Guards Offer the Hat-Trick of Protection

I’ll admit when I first received the offer to review antibacterial screen covers I could scarcely control my snark reflex. Have we as a culture really gotten to a point where we have to sanitize our cell phones? It seemed laughable at best??and idle fear mongering at worst.

Microsoft Partners in Learning Aims to Inspire Teachers

This week, November 7th through the 10th, Microsoft hosted educators all over the world in Washington, D.C. for the annual Partners in Learning Global Forum event. Educators got the opportunity to network, attend keynote speeches from educational leaders and present their own innovative projects that leverage technology in the classroom.

Family Gamer Awards Include Some Unusual Winners

The Family Gamer Awards have been bubbling away for quite a few years now. This year the homepage has had a mini-makeover so that you can see all the past winners. Browsing the list makes for some interesting reading, and reveals the sometimes unusual and unlikely selections. Working on these awards has been a real treat.

A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 12

Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.

Chinese Wage Hikes Cast Shadow Over Electronics Biz

On January 1, the minimum wage will rise as much as 20 per cent in China's Guangdong province, a move that could affect the region's status as a hotbed for low-cost manufacturing -- or even raise the prices of the world's electronics.

Gadget Lab Podcast: Mobile Flash RIP, iOS 5 Battery Issues and Droid Razr

On this week's edition of the Gadget Lab podcast, we talk about Adobe's decision to kill mobile Flash and the ongoing iOS 5 battery problem saga, then take a look at Motorola's tough but slender new Droid Razr smartphone.

Chevrolet Volt Fire Prompts Federal Inquiry of EV Batteries

Federal authorities are investigating the safety and proper handling of lithium-ion automotive batteries after a Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid caught fire three weeks after a routine crash test. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked General Motors, Nissan, Ford and others about the fire risk posed by li-ion batteries used in EVs and plug-in hybrids.

Windows Phone Mango: 10 New Apps You Must Check Out

It's never easy being a third-party app developer. Besides needing a great app idea, you must master your platform's SDK, and then work hard to make sure your app has visibility in whatever platform ecosystem you've chosen to infiltrate. Enter Microsoft's BizSpark program, which helps software devs bring their apps to market. One of the program's major initiatives is Mobile Acceleration Week, a multi-city road show that's designed to give guidance and support to Windows Phone Mango developers. Last week, the event was held in San Francisco, so we dropped by to hunt for the latest, greatest Windows Phone apps coming down the pike. Here are 10 of the most promising. Just be aware that not all are currently available in Marketplace.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Technology

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:48:00 +0000

What should we do for safety,

With a Internet connection has several advantages and disadvantages. One of the biggest and the ultimate goal of the Internet is communication. As you can see, people can send e-mails, calls and video calls to loved those in remote locations to communicate with only a fraction of a second the same as like a pepper spray can cause pain in only a fraction of a second. Even if you love the other side of the world will get closer, the Internet, it will feel like it is in close proximity to you.
You can use the Internet to compare one library. Millions of data stored, so that the Internet is also a good source of information. The students can be of great benefit from the Internet because they can do research to their own projects in the comfort of your home. Gone are the days where people wear at the expense of the books and go home late at night after some research, because the Internet have already packed with millions of pounds.
You can also have fun when you have an internet connection. You can play games, download the latest version in the music industry, and watch videos, plus a whole lot .You can do even a chance to bank or money. Online shopping is also available.
Disadvantages of Internet to identity the theft, pornography and spamming. Some people who copy and use the identity of others and try to keep it secret. Than thinking about things in private, including your address, social security number, phone number and other private information. Pornography was a problem, because there are some who post their nude pictures or videos or have sex in the social networking sites are. This is a great threat to the health of your child's mental and it can be very harmful.
It is the responsibility of the individual to keep his private profile is the same as when you take responsibility when you own a self defense stun guns. If you do not want to pursue other, best not to store information that will destroy your image. If you have children, to monitor and ensure that you will not forsake you watch videos or visit Web sites that can change the perception of life.

Smartphone technology

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:51:00 +0000

Simple user,

Smartphone is like important thing in our daily life for today. its help us to make our work or task more easier and simple. smartphone also come in many software to guide and performed office task work and many more.

Computer and internet

noreply@blogger.com (ddcq) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:23:00 +0000

What I think about computer technology, internet.

What is Technology?, it was the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, likes "computer technology" or "recycling technologies", machinery and equipment developed from such scientific knowledge. For example i used today was an Information technology, the branch of engineering that deals with the use of computers and telecommunications to retrieve and store and transmit information.

Nowdays almost every house used personal PC like computer or laptop at their home. Than almost of people was connect through internet for study, business and many more. Why they used this computer at home, because it was very simple to used and more flexsible. Why internet must take apart to, because internet give more information people need without go out and save money. With computer and internet it will help people in every situation like business, assigment, project, study and more issue inn world. Internet also can provide connecting in global without go to other places for discuss or share command.