Comments on: Moving Beyond Screen Time http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/11/20/moving-beyond-screen-time/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Diana Willis Bottomley http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/11/20/moving-beyond-screen-time/comment-page-1/#comment-439594 Sat, 22 Nov 2014 15:25:18 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=25075#comment-439594 Intriguing post. As an early childhood educator, though, I feel that there may be some context missing here. Statements like “Screens don’t teach!” have been used by early childhood educators to voice their concerns over the efforts by local, state, and federal education administrators to incorporate more technology into daily early childhood curricula, not as blanket anti-technology sentiments. A majority of early childhood educators, including myself, understand the role technology plays in daily life, and that there is a place and time for it. We are, however, increasingly facing pressure to use more and more technology in the classroom and are pushing back against the system, as countless studies show play-based, hands-on learning to be best for early learners. Electronic media has its place within children’s lives, but we do not feel it is necessary to incorporate technology in a three hour school day.

I think it is fabulous that the mother of the aforementioned child facilitated meaningful play around Angry Birds. Not all children have families that will engage them to think critically about media and with what they are engaging on screens, however. It must be noted, too, that screen use at home and screen use in classrooms are quite different. Apart from some cameras and a CD player, I have a technology-free classroom. That’s at least partly because I know most, if not all, of my students have many opportunities for media engagement at home. With that being said, when one of my students draws a picture based on Minecraft, I bring oral language, written language, social studies, and other educational components to the table. I can take a child’s media engagement and turn it into a educational opportunity, however, my daily curriculum is, and will continue to be, based around a hands-on, play-based approach free of screens and most technology.

]]> By: Caroline Ferris Leader http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/11/20/moving-beyond-screen-time/comment-page-1/#comment-439547 Fri, 21 Nov 2014 17:51:25 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=25075#comment-439547 Great post, Meagan. It sparked a conversation between Jonathan Gray and myself about perceptions of active v. passive screen time and all of the medical developmental assumptions made about media engagement. It reminds me of David Buckingham’s call to examine child media engagement beyond an isolated mind-screen interaction. We forget that children, like adults, play with and re-write media narratives in their everyday lives. Thanks so much for reminding us of that.

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