The journey of an art therapist turned education technology expert
Dear Tech-y,
I just read two articles (one and two) about videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids that appear to be for children but are actually teaching children methods for self-harm. I don’t know if this is a hoax or not, but I don’t want my children exposed to these ideas.
Anonymous Parent
Read my answer, which was originally posted to the Laurence website on March 5, 2019.
Partnered with the Lower School Counselor, we discussed typical aspects of childhood development for Kindergarteners through Grade 2. We outlined how we merged our Social Emotional Learning curriculum (Toolbox) with the Digital Citizenship curriculum (Common Sense Media), as well as how we use technology and making at Hamlin to support both curriculum goals and social/emotional development. To highlight this last piece, I surprised the parents by giving them a design directive:
Your team: the parents sitting at your table (3-4 people)
Your challenge: In teams, using the materials provided, create the biggest free-standing structure you can in 25 minutes.
View the slides:
This directive was taken directly from my art therapy training. It’s designed to highlight group dynamics, i.e.: the way the group works together, while including engineering/making. The results were great! Because the parents groups were random (who they happened to be sitting next to during the presentation), many team members had not met each other prior to the challenge. Parents definitely had a lot of fun, and we processed the various interpersonal issues that emerged. By the end of the presentation parents experientially understood how our technology and social emotional programs are intentionally developed and the power of creating as a group.
At Hamlin, digital citizenship is interwoven into the social emotional learning components of our program.
In K-4, teachers offer a digital citizenship lesson once a month as a part of Toolbox. In 5th and 6th grade, Ms. Beck and Ms. Davis team up to regularly deliver digital citizenship classes, and in the 7th and 8th grades, advisory teachers check in with their students and teach digital citizenship during advisory time at least once a month.
At home this week, we ask that you consider taking the Device Free Dinner Challenge! Having family dinners together, without your devices, helps model what a healthy relationship to technology looks like. It also gives the benefit of making deeper connections with your child(ren) and is correlated to better nutrition, better academic performance, and fewer behavioral problems.
and take the challenge this week!
The post It’s Digital Citizenship Week! appeared first on The Hamlin Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog