I hope you are still enjoying watching the eagles from my last post. I want to continue this line of inquiry but take it in a different direction. To quote my professor "Google is making us stupid" and many people in the world feel this way. Some individual's do rely on the internet much more than they should, but it can be an extremely benificial when utilized properly. For instance, rather than letting children spend their time randomly surfing the internet, parents can invest their time in finding websites that serve as educational hubs.
Of course nothing can beat good old fashioned lessons at school, but these websites can enhance and reinforce the lessons they learn every day at school. Furthermore, there are video games for both gaming consoles and computers that provide both fun and education. I played the ever popular JumpStart games as a child, and they rarely felt like hard learning lessons. They were fun games that just so happened to allow me to advance by doing math equations.
Likewise there are whole websites that teach kids the skills to navigate the internet through its use and shows them that learning can be fun. With this there is the underlying message that just as the correct answers and knowledge can advance you through the game, the same can advance them through life. I only hope that whenever I have children there will still be safe and trustworthy sites that can teach them educational skills, and I am sure all of you readers feel the same way.
I definitely agree with the whole using technology based games as a method of teaching. Since so much of our lives revolve around technology anyways, this is just another way to enhance the learning process in a way that the children of today already associate with as a positive thing. When I used to tutor 3-5th graders in high school we always did math games online to help them build on their math skills in a fun manner!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how the Internet, if used properly, can enhance education. Young kids as well as older ones can also recur to sites like BrainPOP and videos of Schoolhouse Rock on YouTube, for example, to make learning more entertaining and amusing. But I think older audiences can benefit, too. Actually, we as college students have been benefiting from sites like Wikipedia, Google, and databases for our school projects and work.
ReplyDelete