DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES & LEARNING
Digital Technologies & Learning
Children learn from their play. From your child’s first games of peek-a-boo with you to learning the rules of a simple game such as tic-tac-toe, children are presented with opportunities for exploring and testing their thoughts about their world. They teach themselves about relationships, cooperation, and solving problems. Play allows them to imitate adults, care for others, and teach and share what they have learned. Play helps them to learn to handle disappointments and successes; develop skills of imagination and creativity; and practice planning, prioritizing, and thinking about the future.
Play is a basic component of learning across all human cultures. Dr. David Elkind, in his book The Power of Play, describes love, work, and play as “three inborn drives that power human thought and action throughout the lifecycle.” A child’s love of play facilitates practice, learning, and a willingness to “work” to master the demands of his/her world. A child’s love, engagement, attention, and perseverance in his/her play (which we refer to as “engamement”) amplifies, extends, and consolidates opportunities for learning.
21st Century Play
Play is not only fun, it also provides training for future roles and activities. Just as historical forms of play such as “playing house” prepared individuals for social roles and using bows and arrows provided early training for hunting and food gathering, involvement with technology provides children with skills that will be necessary for managing households, finances, and communication skills necessary in their world.
Children in the 21st century are increasingly involved in technological play using computer and video games, hand-held electronic devices, and mass communication tools such as the Internet and television. These digital technologies frequently require the use of a wide range of executive function skills such as problem solving, planning, self-control, flexibility, and organization. Effective game playing involves the ability to get started on tasks efficiently, maintain attention and effort, persist in the face of difficulties, manage frustration, think before acting, and shift strategies when appropriate.
How Much Is Too Much?
One of the main criticisms of children’s use of video games and other digital technologies is that they are “a waste of time” or addicting. LearningWorks for Kids strongly encourages parents to monitor and help children select the type of games and the amount of time in which they are involved with digital technologies. While we do not believe that there is a “one size that fits all,” standard in general we believe that children should be limited to one to two hours of “screen time” per day. Our goal is to make this “screen time” productive, engaging, and fun.
LearningWorks for Kids suggests that a healthy “play diet” consists of a good mix of activities. Just as dietary nutrition includes a mix of fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins, a healthy play diet includes physical, social, solitary, and game play. We believe that the most important ingredients of a “play diet” are the social and physical components. While some “gamers” might argue that they are involved in social experiences in massive multiplayer online games or in gaining physical experiences in playing games on the Nintendo Wii, the LearningWorks for Kids perspective strongly advocates involvement in team and individual sports, social opportunities such as extracurricular clubs and organizations, a regular plan of exercise, and pursuit of artistic and extracurricular academic activities.
How Do Kids Learn Executive Function Skills with Digital Technologies
Beyond the basic fact that children learn from their play, there are a number of specific methods that digital technologies can support the growth of executive functions, including:
1. Enabling, developing and generalizing skills for learning and problem solving; these occur while:
- Playing with games and digital technologies that require executive function skills in order to use them (for example, video games that require organization, planning, and sequencing in order to “beat the game,” cell phones, iPods, and other hand-held electronics that require prioritization skills, organization, and metacognition {thinking about one’s actions}).
- Creating content such as a Facebook page or an account to sell items on E-Bay which require the use of executive functions
2. Assistive learning strategies; this occurs with:
- Tools that support the use of executive functions such as cell phones that provide alarms, calendars, and schedules that help with time management, computer keyboards that provide opportunities for more effective written expression.
3. Training and rehearsal opportunities; these occur with:
- Direct learning from digital technologies such as using educational software, the Internet for searching and research, and games that develop specific skills such as engineering or computer-assisted drafting.
- Internet-based and computer software designed to enhance language-based and mathematical skills. Computer software for specific academic skills, such as a child’s ability with sight word reading or in multiplication tables, often reduces the need for executive resources that can then be applied to higher level cognitive tasks.