My earliest computer-related experience took place on Christmas 1989, when my siblings and I unwrapped our first home computer, a Tandy 1000 from RadioShack (640 KB; 8\/4 MHz – my dad keeps good records). In addition to my six family members all vying for computer time, my parents had strict rules around any screen time, and did not approve of games they did not consider educational. They did, however, allow \u201cWhere in the World is Carmen Sandiego\u201d (considered educational) and \u201cThe Colonel\u2019s Bequest\u201d (less educational, but allowed because my dad attended Tulane University, as did the main character, and lived in New Orleans, where the game takes place). My siblings and I still look back on these two games with fond memories, and it is interesting to me just what an impact even relatively limited use of a computer had on us.<\/p>\n
The questions that come to mind when I think of my own computer experiences are often related to the educationally sound debate that follows many of the digital technology initiatives in classrooms. Based on the upbringing I had, I think I tend to shy away from using much digital technology in the classroom because of the amount of screen time I automatically assume students have at home (I recognize class screen-time is different, but my bias, unfortunately, is hard to shake). My questions are: How do I decipher which digital technology applications\/initiatives are beneficial and which are not in terms of preparing students for their futures? How does an increased use of digital technology in the classroom affect students\u2019 development in other areas (i.e., the haptics of writing, hands-on experiences with manipulatives, etc.)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My earliest computer-related experience took place on Christmas 1989, when my siblings and I unwrapped our first home computer, a Tandy 1000 from RadioShack (640 KB; 8\/4 MHz – my dad keeps good records). In addition to my six family members all vying for computer time, my parents had strict rules around any screen time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669384],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-auto-e-graphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}