Gone are the days when every lesson was taught on a blackboard with students ready to take notes longhand with paper and pencil. Today, most lessons make use of technology in one way or another and if you want your children to excel in their studies, you will help them discover key ways to use that technology.
1. Expose Children to Various Kinds of Technology
Here, it is probably safe to say that the one piece of technology every student should have is an educational tablet or a laptop. If cost is an issue, you can often find good deals on the Lenovo site. Once you have equipped your young student with a device through which they can access the internet, you are ready to begin exposing them to the various kinds of technology. Sticking with IT isn’t the only kind of tech they will make use of in their daily lives, so try to broaden their horizons. Computers may form the basis for most kinds of technology in the 21st century, but it doesn’t always mean they are connected. Some technology does not require an internet connection!
2. The Mini/Maxi Screen Time Approach
Some teachers and parents call this the mini/maxi approach because what you are trying to achieve is a shorter amount of time online by maximizing their use of that time. Each parent or teacher can set a time limit for using a computer so that students will learn to work more efficiently in the time allotted. While many people spend the entirety of their day online, this is not something you want for a young student.
3. Teach Them How to Find Reference Materials
One thing that is vitally important, even in early elementary grades, is to teach your children how to conduct online searches to find the reference materials they need. Your grandparents probably remember well what it was like to suffer through a Dewey Decimal System card catalogue at the library and thankfully, this is something your children will never need to worry about. Learning how to type a couple of keywords in the Google search bar has simplified research beyond what anyone could have imagined even a generation ago.
4. Let Your Kids Explore Responsibly
How many times have you found yourself wandering off the path you were exploring online? All of a sudden you find yourself on a site that has nothing to do with the research you were conducting and before you know it, a million popups are obscuring your vision. Some kids have never been taught that not all websites are safe. While you should encourage your child to begin exploring the wide world of technology, you also need to teach them to use that technology wisely. Help them learn to differentiate malicious content from safe content. Unfortunately, that isn’t always easy to do because malicious code is easy for hackers to embed in their site’s code.
The point is, that while IT will form the basis of the technology they will need to excel in their studies, it isn’t the only kind of tech they should be learning about. There may come a time when all tech needs to be connected, but that day has not yet arrived. Help your kids explore their potential but teach them safety guidelines to minimize their risk of being exposed to nefarious content. Remember, safety above all else.
