How Technology Wires the Learning Brain

Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend 11.5 hours a day using technology — whether that’s computers, television, mobile phones, or video games – and usually more than one at a time. That’s a big chunk of their 15 or 16 waking hours. But does that spell doom for the next generation? “Young people are born into technology, and they’re used to using it 24/7,” Small said. “The technology train has left. The downside of such immersion in technological devices, he said, is that they’re not having conversations, looking people in the eye, or noticing verbal cues. But that’s not the headline here. Video games, for example, aren’t just about repetitive tasks – many of them have built-in social components that allow kids to communicate. “Texting is an expression of what it means to be human,” Small said. That’s why one well-liked teacher Small knows gives her students a five-minute texting break in the middle of class. “We can train empathic behavior,” he said. “The brain is complex,” he said.

RPTools - Home Teaching Tenacity & Metacognition through Games : Professional Learning Board Games and objects ground instruction, and provide the basis for experience and mental representation — comprehension. When we have this, we can spend less time decoding and more time discussing printed text. So by writing about accessible narratives such as games, we were more successful when reading related printed text. We had learned process, concepts, and deconstructing problems. This led to huge changes in student academic performance and confidence. The majority of my curriculum that year was in studying video games as new narratives. Here is the curriculum Here is a story about what we were doing Here is a class you can take I have been offering for the last seven years. There is a lot to learn in a game, but there is a whole lot more to learn outside of the game in documenting, listening, presenting ideas, and extending them, than just playing the games themselves. I am hoping that this article makes a start for teachers embracing a model where they consider Learning by Design.