These days you can often hear teachers complaining that their students do not show them enough respect or motivation for studying. More often than not, today children are perceived as uninterested and unmotivated for the school syllabus. What teachers do not want to accept is that the times are changing and today they are not the only source of knowledge for their students. 21st century kids live in a tech-savvy world dominated by fast-changing IT-features, which can be used to improve your kid’s learning skills.
Modern Ways of Improving Kids Learning Skills
1. Tablet-equipped children
Every single technological innovation can be used in a practical and positive way. It is up to the user to choose how to use a gadget or a software tool. Since kids are still too young to be able to make such decisions, their parents have to play the role of selector in children’s IT education. Leaving your child playing video games for hours is definitely a counterproductive approach. On the other side, equipping your children with a tablet that will enhance their learning potentials is a great option. Today app developers and tablet manufacturers produce kid-friendly tablets and apps that can really help children improve their learning skills and help them prepare for their preschool and school obligations. But remember that the use of such gadgets always has to be controlled by parents.
2. Tech features and writing
The fact that teenagers read and write posts on their social media profiles is encouraging. Imagine what it would look like if they did not have a chance to express their thoughts and ideas that way. Today teenagers write more than ever before; everybody texts their friends or writes posts in social media. What parents should do is simply advise their kids how to make creative posts and support the development of their language culture under those new, social media-enhanced conditions. Also, teachers could also join the game and every class could choose the best-written post of a week on a regular basis. After all, a report published by Oxford University Press does show that social media is affecting children’s language use. The sooner teachers realize what matters to children, the better their mutual work and progress will be.
3. Coding their future
Since today children are exposed to cutting-edge technology features from an early age, they should be taught how the IT world functions as they are growing up. Here parents can make a great use of some creative software tools and show their kids what they could do for a living in the near future. For instance, the Scratch project is a great chance for kids to get comprehensive knowledge about modern technologies. A product of MIT students, this website is meant to explain children aged 8-16 the basics of coding in an amusing way. Kids eager to dive into the world of coding can play simple, yet entertaining games, as well as do some animated projects. Who knows, maybe this course will inspire the parents, too, to try their luck in programming.
4. Solving problems and visual attention
If you think about video games from a deeper point of view, you will see that they usually have a sort of a plot that a player has to follow. When playing problem-solving, mind expanding games like Poptropica, children’s brain learns how to follow a story and solve problems along the way. It could boost their rational thinking, essential for the decades ahead. Also, when exposed to numerous visual stimuli, the level of their visual attention also grows, which can contribute to their visual learning skills in the future.
To help their children find their place in the modern world in an easier way, today’s parents should encourage them to grab the technological innovations of the modern age. Also, they have to supervise how the kids use those devices and software solutions and offer them some alternative, traditional options, too. Only when they get the best of both worlds will they be well-equipped for their future educational challenges.
