Kids and Tech Gadgets Current Event #7

flickr photo shared by aprilbrown

While travelling down to Kananaskis on Wednesday to attend the ECEC Conference: Permission to Play I was listening to CBC radio's Spark program (Love it! Thank you to Joanne or Jennifer for recommending it). The interview which caught my attention was Kids and Tech Gadgets. It was a fantastic interview about how too much technology and gadgets can be replacing creative outlets in kids. If students are being passed gadgets, which are called Passback tools they are always being stimulated by technology and not given the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity to explore and imagine.
It was interesting because the conferences' theme was Play. I felt his interview and our conference had a lot to do with each other. Dr. Stuart Brown and Brian Keating both talked about the importance of play and how it contributes to a well rounded individual. They had far more scientific language than I do, I'm just summing it up for this post.  Dr. Brown also spoke about how sleep and play can stimulate the same areas of the brain. He mentioned how a good play session can give you the same feeling as a good sleep. I found this to be very interesting.  Jeana Lee Tahnk commented on balance and how important it is to maintain when it comes to technology and children's usage. I would agree completely. I don't believe the Internet and technology are going away but it's about finding balance. Sometimes, unplugging and playing can be the best thing for you or your family. We must have kids play, it helps to improve their imagination and creates a better sense of self.


I found this interview especially interesting because Dr. Brown and Brian Keating suggested kids should be out playing to stimulate their imagination and build up their creativeness, sometimes games on computers or apps can not do such a thing. I think technology is important but not at the expense of a child's creativeness. If parents and teachers are always pushing technology and gadgets at our children when will they ever discover how to use a box as a spaceship to travel to the moon or a blanket as a secret hiding place for them and their friends?


On a side note, the other interview Technology and The Wandering Mind was just as good.
Spark. CBC (Producer). (2011). Kids and tech gadgets. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/