Lil' Techies

I use a laptop and am often sitting on the couch “browsing” while the boys are nearby coloring, playing games or watching me “browse”. At the times when the boys are watching me surf the net, I alter my searching a bit to include things that might interest them, for example, doing an image search in Google for “Rhino” or other superheros.

In these browsing sessions, I like to think the kids are little sponges soaking in all the capabilities of the Internet as they watch me move around the web. Using the philosophy of teaching by modeling, the kids are learning:

• To use the keyboard
• That the Internet has a wealth of resources on every topic
• How to form a search string
• Basic internet literacy (links, images, searching, URLs, videos)
• About different media sources (images, video, audio)
• Pearl growing (moving from resource to resource based on new material gleamed from the different resources)
Reference

Haston, W. (2007). Teacher Modeling as an Effective Teaching Strategy: Modeling Is a Technique that Can Help Your Students Learn Effectively in Many Situations. Music Educators Journal, 93(4): 26.

One of our favorite Christmas presents this year was Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. This is the first game of its kind that lets gamers play in the same world, at the same time (if you have 2 remotes). In multiplayer mode, both of my kids can run through Mario land as a team.

Even though many fights have erupted between the brothers for not collaborating properly, multiplayer mode has the potential to teach team-building and collaboration:

1. Cooperation
   To get the most coins, the players must work together. This means that they must cooperate and make plans outside of Marioland. For example, one player can say to the other, “you get the coins on the top, I’ll get the coins on the bottom”. Time is saved and both players get the benefits.
2. Courtesy
   If one player runs ahead too far, the other player will die. As a courtesy, the faster player usually waits for the other player to catch up before high tailing it to the next adventure.
3. Teaching
   In our case, one of our players is more advanced (the 6 year old) than the other (the 4 year old). In order for their partnership to work, the more experienced player must instruct the other player on what to do, how to do it and why.
4. Helping
   One thing my two lil’ players have discovered is that they can help each other. When time is running out, the better player lets the less experienced player hop on his back and carries him along to finish the board.
5. Team Work
   The brothers are a team. Like it or not, what one does affects the other. The players learn that they are dependent on each other and that they will win or lose together.
6. Decision-making
   In Marioland, everything happens quickly so there isn’t much time for making decisions, but in multiplayer mode, this gives kids a chance to make decisions together.

Here is a list of more cooperative games for the Wii.

I’m a little late in the game, but finally had my first experience with the parenting social network Circle of Moms on Facebook and becoming a fan of another child’s page on Child Space. This app/website  has been out for over a year and has almost 8 million members!

From my experience using this app/webiste, I think the attraction is in the sense of security (you create your child’s network, rather than posting to all your Facebook friends) the site offers moms who want to post about their kids. This app only lets other moms join the circle (‘moms’ as in Facebook users who’s profiles declare them female).

The interesting thing is that while this network is for mom’s only, it was created by 2 single guys, Mike Greenfield and Ephraim Luft.