Lest you think that I’m some sort of backwards Luddite, I assure you that in this household we have an average of 2.3 computing devices per person, not including gaming consoles and smartphones. And even so, I’m in favour of limited screentime for kids and have butted heads with my son’s schools more than once over the idea of tablets in the classroom, replacing more traditional methods of teaching.
And like almost all things political, it’s this complex, many-headed hydra of a beast.
Do I think tablets are a bad thing? Well, no. But come on, man. They want to put an iPad in to the hands of every student… that’s 300-400 iPads per school, which (as all tech does, regardless of brand) has a limited lifespan, even assuming a Kindergartner never goes “Oops!” The thing that gets my righteous goat, however, is selling UNLIMITED SLICES of pizza to small kids to raise the money to buy them, for the love of Cthulhu.
What’s wrong with having them as shared and occasional use resources, ala computer lab? You remember the old addage, “everything in moderation”? Yes, this. And also, hello, parental involvement.
There’s billions of apps out there, and lots of crap that I wouldn’t let my child touch with a 10 foot pole, but every now and then a real diamond comes to the surface, and never is that more apparent than some of these interactive books/appisodes out there for kids that are really just… amazing.
I have to hand it to the tablet and smartphone industry… they sort of opened a sandbox, folded their hands and said, “let us play,” turning the gaming and (for lack of a better term) “other” software industries on their ears. While swiping is little better than mouse clicking in most mobile device content out there, clearly a few people had a good hard think about the cooler possibilities.
Imagine watching or reading a story, and being able to turn your fingertip into a flashlight to be able to search a “darkened” room, or navigate your way through different options and play memory matching games, or what have you? What if it’s well crafted, bright, cheerful, and beautifully-rendered?
Then you end up with an app like Windy and Friends. It’s an artistic, interactive book for Kindergartners based on the (printed) children’s books by Vancouver-based Emily Carr grads Judith Steedman and Robin Mitchell Cranfield, that tickles that soft spot in my heart for hand-crafted animation that I’ve been a sucker since Gumby.
When you’ve got a creative play outlet like this, it doesn’t just turn kids into slobbering screen-zombies tapping at things randomly. They think as they interact. Then you have something that you don’t have to feel guilty about giving the kid the tablet as an electronic sitter for an hour while you’re occupied making dinner, or as you’re driving to the in-laws for Christmas. And then it encourages kids to put the iPad down and go create things that they saw while they were playing!
Perfect.
Hey, speaking of Christmas, Windy has an advent calendar, which is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. If you’re enjoying their appisodes, and you can’t get enough for Christmas, then make sure you give it a look-see.
So cause I like promoting local and well made educational kid products, I’m giving away here a Windy bundle featuring Windy, Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and a Windy e-card! Feel free to enter to win.
I’m glad that there’s still some places where technology, education, and entertainment can all meet halfway. I could wish that there were more of them, but at least the ones that I’ve got? They’re worth every penny.
Contest open to US and Canada. Must be 18+ to win and have a valid email address.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of Windy and Friends to give the app a try and host this giveaway. All opinions are my own.
Day 4
December 6 · Time for a Christmas tree ,would like to make some of these.
Hi! While I certainly understand the issues with letting Kindergarteners loose with a tablet, there are also aspects of preparing kids for a digital future. Being really comfortable with technology is going to be a class/economic differentiator in the very near term. If your kids are attending a public school, then some of their classmates won’t be able to afford a tablet to use at home where they can get comfortable with it and explore with it. If the school’s objective is technology access for all, then I’d be willing to applaud it. Keep up posted on how the experiment works in your school! (BTW, parents in LA would agree with you — the LAUSD Superintendent recently had to resign due to a bungled tablet/student program that was going to cost $1.5 BILLION dollars!)
Hi Anna. I agree. It’s long and convoluted, and I don’t actually object to schools having technology… but the schools are selling all this pizza and stuff to kids to buy iPads… which they would get for free if they waited. The HWDSB, as I understand it, has a technology rollout in place where they’re outfitting the schools gradually with the tablets, which comes with the IT support and the official school-board-approved apps, some of which cost upwards of $500 to buy. So what the schools are actually doing is queue jumping by selling junk food to kids during school hours and pushing a lot of fundraising. They’re not required to implement any sort of lessons on research ethics; they’re not required to teach kids how to spell or type properly. They’re not getting the official apps or IT support, and so the iPads sit gathering dust when the schoolboard finds out and wipes the unauthorized apps from them.
As a GenX’er who didn’t see the internet exist until she was 16 and had to survive on shared Apple IIe computer labs once a week, I don’t believe for a second that kids will be “behind” in technology adoption if kids have to share a tablet or don’t get to use them till they’re 8 or 10. I also believe that they’re doing kids a disservice if they don’t teach kids how to spell, type, and how to ethically use the internet for research without just citing Wikipedia. Sure there’s some special cases where tablets with special apps have been shown to be useful with kids with developmental disabilities, but that’s a handful of tablets per school instead of their dream… a tablet in the hands of EVERY child. 🙂