Having interviewed a parent, who has three children in primary school throughout the Key Stage one and two, I was quite surprised to find that the opinion was one that differed from my own. They felt that the use of technology and other forms of media in school was a good thing and benefited the children, however, there needed to be a limit to its use.
Mention was made of the following points:
- Needs to be used under rules and timeframes to regulate its use
- Should only be used if it directly benefits the children
- Books are more fun in learning environments
- Too much technology around in general, causing children to become lazy
The general attitude towards popular culture within the classroom is that it is useful if it has a beneficial effect on children’s learning, but that there is too much of it about. Also that it can make children lazy and unsociable. The fact that almost everything in the current age is just ‘a click away’ detracts from the traditional methods of collecting data such as using a library and physically going out in the world to find out information.
I found these opinions to be slightly conflicting and contradictory to what I have observed but I have had a different lifestyle and upbringing to my interviewee and this may be a reason why.
ICT Example
I choose to use Pixton comic creator as my example. I found that it could be useful for children to use in story telling as it allows for a range of settings, has fully customisable characters (if you subscribe to the right option) and allows you to enter text in speech bubbles. I only used the basic version of the software as it is free to use. Literacy would be a great subject area to incorporate this software into as it provides an opportunity for children to learn about ICT aspects whilst being able to share their creations with their teacher and the rest of the class.
My comments from parents I spoke to were similar, in that they supported the use of popular culture and technology in the classroom as long as it was appropriate and beneficial. The question I would ask to the parent you interviewed however would be, if it is beneficial and the children enjoy it, then why limit it? I agree to an extent with the parent that too much exposure to popular culture and technology can make children ‘lazy’, but this entirely depends on how children are being exposed to it; a child cannot be considered ‘lazy’ if they are developing the appropriate knowledge and skills through using popular culture and technology to achieve this. I also disagree with the notion that using search engines rather than physically going out to the library to search for information is a lazier approach to learning, as in my view, the act of researching and reading up on information shows a conscientious attitude, whatever way you decide to do it. Also children can be sociable through using the internet for research; in schools I have worked in, children often work in pairs over one computer, and this usually sparks lively discussion and team work.
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