Are your kids Zoomed out?

(Or whichever digital learning platforms they've been using for remote learning)

Today I'm going to share some of my thoughts on why younger learners (aged 5-8) will happily spend hours on screens for leisure, but you have to drag them to their live school sessions and school work, at the end of a long term of remote learning.

A hint: It’s about student engagement in online learning and teachers not just trying to replicate their physical classrooms online.

Firstly what do I mean by student engagement?

Student engagement is about focus, interest, curiosity, passion, optimism and the level of motivation that students show when they are learning. If you read again over those terms and think back to when your children were younger and the intense concentration and interest they demonstrated when they were really trying to master something new (like my toddler has been doing with counting his fingers), you’ll know exactly what I mean.  To define digital engagement means taking that student engagement and transferring it into ways to engage students online!

Without engagement, our concentration and motivation to learn is nearly non-existent. Which leads me to the second part of my hint about why kids are “Zoomed out”.

What’s wrong with just replicating physical classrooms online?

Unfortunately for parents, we've had to watch as teachers have tried (working incredibly hard in the process) to pivot rapidly to the online learning world, with no preparation and little professional development to enable them to use the power of digital technologies. In other words, what we've seen is teachers trying to replicate what they do in their day to day classrooms into an online world - and it hasn't worked very well.

Why? Because the structures of our schools, the methods of teaching young children, and "the grammar of schooling" if you like, has remained largely unchanged since it was created in the industrial era, and they are no longer fit for a 21st century future. 

Our children are digital natives. They already know how to manipulate digital technologies to meet their interests and needs. They are naturally curious and are happy to explore how the online world works. And they LOVE to engage and interact with others and with their world. They are definitely NOT passive receivers of instruction, information and teaching. And neither do we want them to be. So when teachers put together learning content for remote learning which is from an outdated mode of instruction, it’s no wonder our children tune out. In fact, “there has been significant research to indicate that when they are given opportunities to give input into their learning experiences, their levels of engagement and motivation rise” (AITSL, 2013)

So what should we do?

We need to prioritise student voice and give our children a myriad of opportunities to develop the 21st Century skills their future will demand of them. To name but a few: critical and creative thinking; high level communication skills; self management; self regulation; collaborative skills; emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills for life and work.

 The main challenges for us as adults participating in children’s digital engagement are that we need to: unlearn the way we were taught, in order to become our children’s coaches, mentors and guides; embrace and explore new possibilities created by digital technologies becoming co-learners alongside young people; support children in interactive and physically engaging ways of connecting with digital technologies. 

How to Improve Online Learning?

We as parents, teachers and educators need to curate and support healthy ways for our children to engage with the online world by:

1.       Creating opportunities for interaction between children through digital platforms

Junior primary school children need to interact and play together. One of the best ways to help children stay engaged is by fostering their social and emotional development. If children are encouraged to build connection through digital platforms, they’re able to enjoy meaningful engaged learning together. Much of what is being delivered as online engagement at the moment is pre-recorded content being given to children to consume. There is no interaction at all.

2.      Giving children the opportunities to co-learn about and with digital technologies.

Co-learning or co-creating with our children or creating opportunities for them to learn alongside others with digital technology is so powerful and yet simple. For example, children learning together within virtual worlds such as Minecraft, a fantastic potential Digital engagement platform, where they have to negotiate, communicate and collaborate. All this can be done within a safe and controlled environment. I’m sure you’re already amazed by what your 5 and 6-year-olds can do!

3.      Encouraging physical engagement, not just passively receiving screen-based content, sitting for long periods of time.

Children, especially younger children need to move.

If there’s one positive thing which has come from widespread Lockdowns it has been the discussion about more nuanced understandings of digital technology use. Instead of just saying it’s good or bad to have a certain amount of screen time, we’ve turned our attention to the very important question of WHAT we’re doing for screen time. If we ensure our children (of all ages) use digital technologies for a wide variety of purposes and in a wide variety of ways, then we can ensure their health and wellbeing.  The Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (Australian Government, 2017) advise against long periods of sitting for young children, so it’s important we encourage our children to be moving and can really help with engaging students in learning.

Virtually There Workshops are designed with all of these principles in mind. What your children will experience in our workshops is:

• In built interaction and collaboration between participants.

• Shared problem solving and collaboration.

• Doing! Children will be busy making and creating in real life and the focus on the actual screen is kept to a minimum. Even in our most digitally focused workshop (Animate This!) participants are moving and manipulating physical characters to create an animation.

And even though we know at Virtually There that we’ve got lots of great ideas and tools, we've still got sooo much to learn about the power and potential of new digital technologies.

If you’re unsure if your Prep-Year 3 child will enjoy Virtually There workshops, we invite you to sign them up for a Single Junior Workshop for 40% off (or $18/workshop), anytime during week 1 (21st-25th September). Just use PROMO CODE: JUNIORTRIAL and select any Junior Workshop. Remember they’re fully interactive, engaging and hands on which get your children imagining, connecting and creating.