Canadian children are increasingly being left to their own devices – both literally and figuratively – when it comes to accessing the internet, according to a major new study of students’ online habits, the Vancouver Sun reports. ReleasedWednesday by MediaSmarts, the survey of 5,436 youth in grades 4 through 11 revealed that today’s parents, compared with those in 2005, enforce dramatically fewer rules when it comes to their kids’ internet pursuits. And unlike the recent past, when shared family computers reigned supreme, Canadian students are now likelier to go online using their own smartphone or portable device. But Jane Tallim, co-executive director of MediaSmarts, said it’s not necessarily a “bad news story,” noting that increased household awareness about Internet safety may be leading to less formal policing…
Podcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Technology poised to revolutionize education
There is almost no aspect of life that has not been fundamentally changed and re-ordered over the past 100 years through new technology and innovation, the Vancouver Sun reports. Think for instance, of how we communicate, travel, work, and even rest, and you’re hard pressed to find one aspect of life that has not been materially altered by technology. Yet there is one significant aspect of society where very little has changed over the last century: education. It is the one area where a worker, in this case a teacher, from 1913 could be transported to 2013 and adapt quite easily to the modern world. For all intents and purposes, we educate our children in much the same way we did a century ago, in a one-size-fits-all manner. Specifically, most of our education system still relies on a teacher (or professor) formally instructing students in a classroom setting…
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