Kids are using their phones to do everything: Is this a good thing?
“Can you please send that link to my email?” I ask, innocently. I prefer to open the link and order whatever it is my teen needs on my desktop rather than my phone.
Texting, and communication, has changed
There is one place getting more attention lately for increasing the quality of conversations: in-person.
The gift of art in the age of AI
Original digital art takes patience and skill. While yes, you could ask ChatGPT to recreate something similar with the right prompt, it doesn’t come close to the heart or care that was put into this original artwork and it doesn’t quite look the same.
Summertime and the screens are easy
I am lucky enough to work from home and have a flexible work schedule, so my kids have always been stay-at-home kids in the summer. They have some daily chores and other special work to do over the summer, but in general they have a lot of free time on their hands.
What do you meme it’s not legal?
My daughter – age 14 – is all about Instagram. It’s her primary source of entertainment: if she’s on her phone, she’s likely looking at memes or laughing at silly posts made by her friends. It’s also the main way she communicates with them, as they use its messaging service much more than things like texting or video chat.
Post-quarantine rules reset
There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19, but for now at least, our province has started to open up a bit. Parks and beaches are open, most stores and malls are opening, and we’re even able to get haircuts again.
The Trickle: What to do when your teen is constantly checking their phone
Our older teens, aged 17 and 15, have smartphones. They aren’t big users of social media, but they do get messages from friends fairly often on Instagram, Hangouts and Discord.
What an Internet Outage Means for Teens
We had an internet outage in our neighbourhood last week. We had no internet access for three whole days.
Media Literacy Should Start Early – And Last A Lifetime
Parents could be forgiven for thinking that our children are born media literate. They are mediatized, certainly, even before they are born: it’s a rare baby shower that doesn’t feature Elsa or Elmo in one form or another. As for digital literacy, kids take to devices like the proverbial ducks to water, quickly becoming expert at finding the videos and games they want.
Lights, Camera, Action! Making Media in the Classroom, Made Easy
For nearly thirty years, Canadian teachers have been at the forefront of getting students online and preparing them to use networked technologies safely, productively and responsibly. Many young Canadians have their first experiences with the internet in their classrooms and school libraries. Over the past decade, though, while digital tools have come to provide new opportunities for creating and distributing digital content, MediaSmarts’ research shows that most Canadian teachers aren’t making media in the classroom.