Addicted to the Screen! Do you have Media Balance?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am_KYaOqyEc

I love living in Singapore. It is usually sunny and beautiful, but even on rainy days, there is always something to do indoors. I recently spent an exhausting but fun ninety minutes just chasing my kids around—a stark contrast to how I used to spend my time.

Before moving here, I was living in Korea. In my late 20s and early 30s, my life was glued to a laptop. I would start at 5:00 AM, work until school started, teach, and then jump back on the computer until 10:00 PM. I did this for years. Initially, the excitement of creating content and planning units fueled me. But quickly, that faded. I realized it wasn’t sustainable. I became cranky, low-energy, and easily frustrated.

I shared this personal story with my 5th graders last week during our Digital Citizenship unit. We focused on media balance and the importance of reflecting on how we feel when using technology. The goal was to help them understand that they have the power to make choices for a healthier relationship with media.

Living in Singapore has helped me find that balance. I’m no longer constantly on devices. Instead, I’m exercising, hanging out with friends, and spending quality time with my wife and kids.

I hope this encourages you to reflect on your own status with media. Do you have media balance? What choices can you make to get there?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Virtual Museum Using Google Slides Presentation

Image
Last week, my colleague, Javier Hernandez, presented a PD on virtual museums using Apple's Keynote. I thought this would be a great idea for our 5th graders who are currently studying the different cultures of the world. But instead of using Keynote, I thought it would be easier for the students and teachers to use Google Slides. Using office suite applications on your computer can be troublesome during the submission process (multiple emails, multiple versions, etc).  The following is the Virtual Museum template I created using Google Slides. The "Main Lobby" is where you can access the different rooms. For the 5th grade project, each room would be designated for a specific component of a world culture.  The curator's office is where students can provide an image and a short description of themselves.  In the "Room" slides, students can insert images of their museum piece and rename the text appropriately.  If you are planning to create ...
Read more

EdTech2Day: Digital Citizenship Skill for Students is Key

oneeyegoat : It is the responsibility of parents and schools to provide a safe environment for students to be online. Children in the real world are not sent out and about and expected to be safe or do the right thing, so why should we trust them to do so while they are online. Students exposed to graphic... EdTech2Day: Digital Citizenship Skill for Students is Key
Read more

Tagxedo: Create Fun Word Clouds with Twitter ID, URL...

Image
Tagxedo let’s you create word clouds out of your URL, Twitter ID, Del.icio.us account, news, search or RSS. Here is an example of a word cloud I created of my edtech blog: As you can see in the second image, you can customize the font, theme, color, orientation, and shape of your word cloud. Share your creation via Facebook and Twitter. Check out this video by eduTecher . It explains how to use Tagxedo very thoroughly. 
Read more