Children Using E-books a Growing Concern for Some

[willard]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i thought myself how to read, with no adult help[/citation]
You apparently aren't a very good teacher...

i thought myself [...] i thought my self to read through nintendo powers

i tought myself

what was being tought

elective coarse

]

id say interactive media tough me

cant teach

My irony meter just exploded.

And as far as this goes...

advanced math skills in 2nd grade

you know what its like teaching yourself math to the point the first time school teaches you anything is when you hit an elective coarse of trigonometry?

It sounds to me like your ego is out of control, people with the level of intelligence you're claiming don't normally make so many typos moments after declaring their superiority in reading, having taught (with an 'a', not an 'o') themselves.

Also, I wouldn't consider anything before trig anywhere near "advanced math skills." Hell, even trig is stupid easy. A few years back I decided to teach myself a trick in the event math skills came up in a job interview (they didn't). I can now derive (not memorized) all the basic trigonometric identities while holding my breath. I'd planned to be solving a Rubik's Cube with my left hand while I derived the proofs with my right, but I never got the hang of doing it one handed, much less left handed.

me math... well im not putting the hours into doing 2-300 problems of repetitive crap (our assignment at one point was 1000 problems, due in 2 days)

when you have a hood 400 square feet of chalk board, and you insist on droning on and on, and covering the whole damn thing... cant be bothered to deal with it

You're going to fail out of college very quickly with that attitude. A couple hours of math too much for you? My final semester I was in the lab 16 hours a day, every day, for two months solid to get my senior design project finished. A year before that I had a single class that had four projects, worth a cumulative 80% of the grade, each of which was more complex than the average semester project. You're not really in college until you've given a presentation on five minutes of sleep and ten cups of coffee, and still had another three hours of classes to attend afterward.

If a thousand algebra problems is too much for you, what are you going to do when an assignment comes along that demands you drop everything in your life for weeks on end? Unless you're getting a shit degree like Business (no offense to any business majors out there, you know your degree is the easiest to get), it's probably going to happen. If you want to go into anything computer related, it's going to happen a lot.

Any real math class, you know, where you actually learn "advanced math skills" like differential equations, formal logic, graph theory, and calculus (which is surprisingly easy, especially the first and third semesters of it) is going to be nothing but the professor standing in front of a chalkboard for an hour droning on and performing proofs. Don't want to pay attention? Enjoy either repeating the course or spending even more time learning things on your own. Don't want to do the homework? Have fun working complex problems for the first time on the test worth a third of your final grade.

High school is really, really easy man. I basically slept through it and got straight As, and so did a lot of people I know. It's not exactly hard. If you'd taught yourself the chain rule, or how to calculate the area under a plane, or integrate trigonometric and/or exponential functions, or even simple things like how to solve systems of linear equations with many unknowns using matrices, I'd be a little more impressed. But middle school and high school math? Meh, that crap is easy.

 

[fb39ca4]

i just like it because with the help of a particular calibre plugin, my library offers free ebooks that dont have time bomb drm in them

 

[mcd023]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i thought myself how to read, with no adult help, because they were lazy, i thought my self to read through nintendo powers, and through game instruction books.[/citation]
the Final Fantasy series was a great literacy aid. Except for 7. I had to wait until I was 'old enough' to learn some words XD. And I played them for the plots. AND I do think I have a pretty good attention span, though I only read books that are practical for me, assuming that I'll be reading at all. haha

 

[mcd023]

[citation][nom]memadmax[/nom]and at some point she figured out how to reinstall windows and wiped it so that she could get admin... She prolly learned it by watching me. But, I don't care, she makes me proud....[/citation]
ruh-roh! smart kids. look out! haha

 

[whiteodian]

[citation][nom]memadmax[/nom]and at some point she figured out how to reinstall windows and wiped it so that she could get admin... She prolly learned it by watching me. But, I don't care, she makes me proud....[/citation]
I work in IT and most adults are computer illiterate. If they don't have a shortcut on their desktop, they don't know how to go into the Start menu and find the program they are looking for. They don't know how to find things after saving them. I think to myself, "did you just start using a computer today?" Anyhow, seems like kids are getting smarter and smarter. At least your daughter is.

 

[Desertlax]

I know I don't have the articles to cite it, but I remember reading an article (peer reviewed study type of article) that pointed out that the increase of texting and other forms of technology focused communication was NOT leading to a decrease in literacy. The vast majority of kids were learning to communicate using multiple styles. Not full on multiple languages but learning to write extremely concisely (texting), and still were showing strong long form writing skills (Think blogs, school papers etc.). What was found was that within groups of people that were competent in the style of writing being employed these kids were being well understood. What was suspected (but not studied) was that people (think adults) not familiar with a wide variety of writing styles felt lost, and as such missed much of the information being conveyed.

As for attention spans, I'm still not convinced adults have better attention spans. They may have better self control and the ability to force themselves to focus on something that no longer hold their interest but not a longer attention span. A great example is to look at a park, notice how many kids can play with an activity that may seem completely monotonous and simple. Kids can and do interact with that thing for hours. It's frequently adults that telling kids to move on to new activities or introducing new elements into the play. A place like Gymboree (or whatever the local parent child play play type of setting may be) is a great place to observe this as well. We adults have shorter attention spans, but greater self control to force continued participation in activities that have lost our attention (I know I'm not the only one who's driven somewhere and then realized I was on auto-pilot and not playing attention).

 

[frank_drebin]

Kids should learn how to read first! WTF is "interact" with books??

 

[liquidchild]

[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]Although interactive books may make children retain/remember more information, and may allow them to digest more information, making them learn faster. But if learning is not interactive they will stumble.[/citation]
[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]If a kids only reason something becuase its interactive, then hes screwed, becuase reading can be boring. And sometimes doing boring things is needed, to help improve your attention span to boring tasks.[/citation]

Sure, they can learn more but we need kids to be bored to improve their ability to be bored?????

 

[liquidchild]

[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]Although interactive books may make children retain/remember more information, and may allow them to digest more information, making them learn faster. But if learning is not interactive they will stumble.[/citation]
[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]If a kids only reason something becuase its interactive, then hes screwed, becuase reading can be boring. And sometimes doing boring things is needed, to help improve your attention span to boring tasks.[/citation]

Sure, they can learn more but we need kids to be bored to improve their ability to be bored????? This is the biggest hunk of poop I have ever read on the internet. Stop thinking about how to replenish fry cooks to keep you fed and start thinking about the progress of our species. You should just give up and go lay down in some tree sap...it worked out well for the misquotes in Jurassic Park.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

High school is really, really easy man. I basically slept through it and got straight As, and so did a lot of people I know. It's not exactly hard. If you'd taught yourself the chain rule, or how to calculate the area under a plane, or integrate trigonometric and/or exponential functions, or even simple things like how to solve systems of linear equations with many unknowns using matrices, I'd be a little more impressed. But middle school and high school math? Meh, that crap is easy.

Strange, I've done all the things you listed above in high school... guess American high school is much easier than British system.

 

[gradius2]

Did you know at 6yo they watched everything possible as porn?

 

[classzero]

[citation][nom]chumly[/nom]Ya, not killing trees is bad.[/citation]
The Toxins during production, and what ends up in the landfills are far more devastating to the planet than removing a tree. If you are truly concerned about trees than push a movement for hemp paper (no not to smoke).

 

[guruofchem]

Terrible article - I think they meant interactive devices from toy companies like Leapfrog, but implied it was e-readers like the Kindle. I teach high school, and I can assure you that anything that gets a student to read instead of fragging their buddies is a good thing. Reading a book on Kindle is really no different than reading one in print

 

[eddieroolz]

There'll always be those that doubt the latest in anything. The society needs to not mind them and move on.

 

[everygamer]

Personally I don't get this, video games and interactive books are really not the same. Most interactive books pace at the same speed as an adult reading the page and then flipping to the next page. The only difference is that usually there is pre-recorded audio and the child can flip the page themselves. This would have about the same affect as those old books we got as kids from the library with the audio tape.

Video games are very different, as is implied by the name "Video". It is dynamic and always changing, drastically from one moment to the next. The flicker effect.

At the end of the day, a previous poster has it right, what evidence? Until there is a study with thousands of kids over years of their lives with the technology it is just a fear, not a fact or even a good guess. And since this technology has been around for barely 2 to 3 solid years there can't possibly been any real solid and substantiated research at this point.

 

[markdj]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i thought myself how to read, with no adult help, because they were lazy, i thought my self to read through nintendo powers, and through game instruction books. i tought myself advanced math skills in 2nd grade, to the point my (very crappy) teacher threatened to suspend me because i had to go to the computer to even be engaged in what was being tought... you know what its like teaching yourself math to the point the first time school teaches you anything is when you hit an elective coarse of trigonometry? id say interactive media tough me more than school did, teacher can make history interesting, get a d or f average. cant teach me math... well im not putting the hours into doing 2-300 problems of repetitive crap (our assignment at one point was 1000 problems, due in 2 days) ill take an f on homework but get that A+ on every single one of your tests. i didn't have a single boring science teacher till 7th grade, 7th grade though... when you have a hood 400 square feet of chalk board, and you insist on droning on and on, and covering the whole damn thing... cant be bothered to deal with it, ill take the f on taking notes, and get the a on test and homework (the notes grade was almost more heavily weighted than homework and tests together)point being give the kids a reason to learn to read and they learn.[/citation]

I guess you never found it important to teach yourself how to spell.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]willard[/nom]You apparently aren't a very good teacher...] My irony meter just exploded. And as far as this goes...It sounds to me like your ego is out of control, people with the level of intelligence you're claiming don't normally make so many typos moments after declaring their superiority in reading, having taught (with an 'a', not an 'o') themselves.Also, I wouldn't consider anything before trig anywhere near "advanced math skills." Hell, even trig is stupid easy. A few years back I decided to teach myself a trick in the event math skills came up in a job interview (they didn't). I can now derive (not memorized) all the basic trigonometric identities while holding my breath. I'd planned to be solving a Rubik's Cube with my left hand while I derived the proofs with my right, but I never got the hang of doing it one handed, much less left handed.You're going to fail out of college very quickly with that attitude. A couple hours of math too much for you? My final semester I was in the lab 16 hours a day, every day, for two months solid to get my senior design project finished. A year before that I had a single class that had four projects, worth a cumulative 80% of the grade, each of which was more complex than the average semester project. You're not really in college until you've given a presentation on five minutes of sleep and ten cups of coffee, and still had another three hours of classes to attend afterward.If a thousand algebra problems is too much for you, what are you going to do when an assignment comes along that demands you drop everything in your life for weeks on end? Unless you're getting a shit degree like Business (no offense to any business majors out there, you know your degree is the easiest to get), it's probably going to happen. If you want to go into anything computer related, it's going to happen a lot.Any real math class, you know, where you actually learn "advanced math skills" like differential equations, formal logic, graph theory, and calculus (which is surprisingly easy, especially the first and third semesters of it) is going to be nothing but the professor standing in front of a chalkboard for an hour droning on and performing proofs. Don't want to pay attention? Enjoy either repeating the course or spending even more time learning things on your own. Don't want to do the homework? Have fun working complex problems for the first time on the test worth a third of your final grade.High school is really, really easy man. I basically slept through it and got straight As, and so did a lot of people I know. It's not exactly hard. If you'd taught yourself the chain rule, or how to calculate the area under a plane, or integrate trigonometric and/or exponential functions, or even simple things like how to solve systems of linear equations with many unknowns using matrices, I'd be a little more impressed. But middle school and high school math? Meh, that crap is easy.[/citation]
yea, never been good at spelling, in regards to how the english language makes sounds, its stupid.

[citation][nom]markdj[/nom]I guess you never found it important to teach yourself how to spell.[/citation]

i have tried to get my spelling better, but than i realized that the only people who ever complain about it are the kind of people who 1 misspelt word make a whole point invalid.

i don't care about those people and never want to interact with them, so long as numbers aren't appearing in my words and i'm not purposely misspelling them just because i can, i dont see any problem with how i type.

 

[tolham]

oh good grief, people will complain about anything.

 

[zippyzion]

Hmm... Seems to me no one has quite gotten it yet. It's not about ebooks or ibooks or anything like that. This is the media feeling threatened because if you read well at a younger age you begin thinking for yourself at a younger age. The media hates people thinking for themselves. It is much harder for them to influence people who have well informed opinions of their own.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i thought myself how to read, with no adult help, because they were lazy, i thought my self to read through nintendo powers, and through game instruction books. i tought myself advanced math skills in 2nd grade, to the point my (very crappy) teacher threatened to suspend me because i had to go to the computer to even be engaged in what was being tought... you know what its like teaching yourself math to the point the first time school teaches you anything is when you hit an elective coarse of trigonometry? id say interactive media tough me more than school did, teacher can make history interesting, get a d or f average. cant teach me math... well im not putting the hours into doing 2-300 problems of repetitive crap (our assignment at one point was 1000 problems, due in 2 days) ill take an f on homework but get that A+ on every single one of your tests. i didn't have a single boring science teacher till 7th grade, 7th grade though... when you have a hood 400 square feet of chalk board, and you insist on droning on and on, and covering the whole damn thing... cant be bothered to deal with it, ill take the f on taking notes, and get the a on test and homework (the notes grade was almost more heavily weighted than homework and tests together)point being give the kids a reason to learn to read and they learn.[/citation]I think you had a good point, but I think you lost 80% of it in the delivery.

Also, taught ≠ thought ≠ tough

Your grammar, punctuation, and spelling are important to maintaining organized thoughts with pacing that improves the delivery. Perfect grammar & spelling is not necessary, but horrendous grammar really detracts from your message.