CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCINGTHE DIGITOD
Bill Gates coined the phrase Generation i to describe childrenborn after 1990, who were raised with the Internet as a givenin their lives. I would extend that definition to include thechildren born in the 1970s and later, for whom the internet is a gift intheir lives. And these folks, now in their thirties, are having quite a timepassing on their knowledge to their kids. Sometimes, though, it mustfeel as if the knowledge is flowing the other way.
Here's an example: my son Ben is thirty-seven. One of his earliestmemories is seeing me walk into his kindergarten classroom with anAtari 2600, which I had just purchased. I can see his ecstatic five year-oldface even now. We went home, we set it up, and he began to play.He and his generation were the first to hone the skills at home thatolder kids had developed on pinball machines in arcades. The ultra-keenhand-eye coordination, the ability to watch the entire field of ascreen at one time, the split-second decision-making and the intenseconcentration were as natural to him as watching the new–fangledSaturday morning children's TV programming was to my generation.
So, when computers became available for the home, Ben and hisfriends were ready for them. Their skills and their curiosity were alreadyin place. Just as clear as his kindergarten memory is the day Ben gothis first Apple computer, a IIc, which he received as an eighth birthdaypresent from my mother and father. "I can still see Grandpa writing outthe check on our red couch," he tells me. This amount of detail meanshe has a powerful and important memory of the event.
It is important to note that while these children of the seventies andeighties were learning to love the computer, they were simultaneouslygoing to school, where they had a different kind of experience. This wasa time when school was beginning earlier and earlier in children's lives.When Ben was introduced to the computer at five, he had already beenin school since he was two. Thus, the digital and real-life experiencesblended for him, and the real-life experiences began before the digitalones.
After college, Ben immediately found a job in the computer industry.It is no surprise that when he had children, Ben went right to his homecomputer and found software designed for them. By then, the computerhad undergone a profound change. "It wasn't just for geeks any more,"Ben says. "You didn't have to go down to the one store in town thatsold computers and hope that they had the one you wanted in stock.A supermodel could dash into an Apple Store and get a computer aselegant as she was in under twenty minutes."
Naturally, the software folks were ready to design activities forthese "second generation" children. While kids could watch "Dora theExplorer" and "Sesame Street" on TV, there was also Sesame Street"lapware" on the computer. Some genius invented that term to explainthat a small child could play if he or she were sitting on a parent's lap.These games were not only fun; they also had the obvious advantageof attention from mom or dad. As nice as it was to sit next to a parentand watch TV, this was better. It was interactive: the child played anactive part in the game.
The first computer games for small children in the new millenniumwere found and downloaded from the internet. They required a lot ofparental guidance. Games such as Bob the Builder: Build a RecyclingCenter and Wind Farm on bobthebuilder.com, or Dora the Explorer'sCity Adventure Game on NickJr.com, required the grown-up to pointand click. The children learned fast but mostly, they had to wait untiltheir muscle co-ordination had become mature enough to operate themouse by themselves. While there was powerful incentive to learn, andmany children did, there was still a necessity of having a parent nearby,to help out on a difficult screen, move between websites, fix a glitch, ormaneuver between individual games on the same website.
Because it was so much fun, children learned to play quickly. Bythe time she was four, my eldest granddaughter Sadie was a whiz. Iremember her whipping around various games, asking for occasionalhelp from her father, who was nearby. (It was a great day when Dadfound a piece of software that would allow him to fix his daughter'sscreen issues from his own computer, without even getting up andwalking over!) Sadie's younger sister Orli sat by her side watching hercarefully. She was too young to maneuver the mouse, but she was nottoo young to watch and learn. When Orli uttered her first completesentence to me, at twenty-two months, it was "Grandma, you have todouble click." That's when I knew I was in a different universe.
In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone; by 2009 over one billionapplications–apps–had been downloaded. You could download a gamefor your child, and it would stay on your phone for multiple uses. Thesecomputer games were simpler and more accessible. They were easier touse because you didn't need a mouse. A child played by simply usingher fingers.
When I visited my grandchildren, I would often find Sadie engrossedin a computer game and little Orli sitting on the couch playing withher father's iPhone. The similarities were striking. Both children wereengaged in a satisfying visit to the digital world. But the differenceswere also remarkable: while Sadie was tethered to the one spot in thehouse where the computer was operating, Orli's game could be takenanywhere. A child could play a digital game in the bathroom, in thebedroom, on a car trip. The era of very young children learning from amobile device had begun.
For all the amazing technological advancement, there was a crucialsimilarity between the computer learning process for Sadie and Orli andtheir father. All of them were also in school. DIGITAL learning wasbeing processed in their brains at the same time as SOCIAL andEMOTIONAL learning within a group of their peers.
Fast forward only two years to a classroom inhabited by theDigitods, our name for the digital toddler. Here's a discussion I hadon the first day of school with a mom and her twenty-two month-olddaughter Emma. They were near the area we call dramatic play, withtoy dishes, plastic food, and a play sink and refrigerator.
"Mommy, come and stay by me."
The mom, who had been talking to me, replied, "You want me toplay with you?"
"The child rolled her eyes. "No mommy, I want you to stay withme."
She patted a chair and beckoned for her mommy to sit.
Mom complied, and I followed along to see what would happennext. Although there was another child at the sink, Emma did notengage her in play. Instead, she counted out the dishes very carefully asshe put them at a nearby table.
"Emma's counting skills are amazing," I told her mom.
"You should see her with letters," Mom replied proudly. "Yesterdayher four year-old brother was practicing his writing. He said he waswriting a J, and Emma told him it was a lower case j."
"Where is she learning this?" I enquired.
"From the iPad" Mom admitted. "She's on it all the time and she'sbetter at it than I am."
So, here we have a child not yet two years old, speaking in fluid,complete sentences, which is unusual. She does not yet have the physicalcoordination to write her letters and numbers, but she can count andrecognize letters with a competence way beyond her years. Socially,however, she still behaves appropriately for a twenty-two month old. Shenotices another child but does not yet have the skill to interact with her.And she certainly is not ready to talk about her feelings to a classmate,even if she is good at expressing emotions at home.
Emma has not yet had the leavening experiences that come withbeing in school. So socially and emotionally, she is two years old. Butintellectually, (or cognitively, as we educators like to say) she is mucholder than two.
Here's the problem confronting the Digitods: with all this earlylearning acquired in a solitary exercise with a machine, what if Emmais never interested in communicating with her peers? It's a frighteningthought, and one that is clearly bothering an entire generation ofparents, even if they can only articulate the idea in this fashion: "Is allthis technology really okay for my child?"
Who are today's toddlers? They are children who are inexorablymarching towards all the digital devices available to them. Whether aniPad is hidden in your apartment, or available only in their big brother'sroom, or enjoyed at the house of a friend, these children will find anduse the technological tools they see around them.
There is no stopping them from learning in this new way, so it is nota good idea to try. In fact, these children will need to be technologicallyliterate, as inevitably, their education will include homework, papers,quizzes and finals that will be delivered in an electronic format. Heatherremembers that when she was in college, exams were always written in aBlue Book. However, the year following her graduation, her universitywent digital, and those cute little books were relegated to history.
The most important issue is a different one. How can we, theirparents and teachers, make sure that children are learning what theyneed to know to enhance their intelligence and still be a completehuman being? That is the challenge we all face today, and that is thechallenge this book will discuss in the following chapters.
How do toddlers play on a smartphone or tablet? Generally, they playwith applications–apps–designed for that technology. What constitutesa good app for the Digitod? What else can we as parents and teachers dobesides introduce an app and praise the child for his or her success? Canwe still make a difference in the lives of our children? The answer as wesee it is a resounding YES. But we need to start when the children arevery young, and work in complement with our mobile devices ratherthan against them. Here come the Digitods, the new kids racing downthe information superhighway. And we've got to be ready for them.
CHAPTER 2
THE TEACHING MACHINES
You pre-iPhone parents may remember how fascinating the TVremote control (called the clicker in our home) was to toddlers.The minute they could reach and grab for it, they commenced anintense learning process consisting of punching every button randomlyto see what the result would be. It was often a loud buzzing noise, soparents were condemned to finding strategic hiding places for thisprecious piece of technology. More often than not, the toddler couldfind the clicker when the parent had forgotten the hiding place.
Cell phones also captivated the toddler of this era, but they weregenerally too delicate to let the kids play with them for long. The toyindustry tried to capitalize on the toddler's interest, but to no avail. Didyou give your toddler a toy cell phone? We all did. Even the Elmo phonethat actually did speak was pretty quickly discarded as a fake (nicetry, Fisher-Price!). But the game changed with the introduction of theiPhone, and with the rollout of the iPad several years later, civilizationwould never be the same.
Apple did not invent the swipe and pinch technology of the iPhoneand iPad; they popularized it. And that's where the story changes forthe Digitod. What is more interesting than that shiny item your parentplays with all day long? I can tell you the answer from having observedtoddlers for over thirty years. Nothing. Not even a special blanket or astuffed animal. After all, baby items are at the toddler's beck and call.The iPhone and the iPad are the purvue of the parent. And that makesthem doubly interesting, a sort of "value added" piece of equipment.
Recently, I was talking with a parent who had brought his sixmonth-old daughter with him to our conference. She sat quietly in herstroller, playing with the toys her dad had brought for her. At that age, achild can reach out for something, but chances are fifty-fifty that she'llget it. Her reach is more developed than her grasp. An astute parent canfollow the child's gaze to see what she is really interested in holding.Then it is up to the parent to decide if the item is appropriate for asmall being who puts everything into her mouth, or if it's contraband,as most things are.
Dad had been reading questions for me from his iPhone, but put itdown on a nearby chair for a moment. You would have thought he hadplaced the Hope Diamond next to his daughter. She turned her headaround sharply, leaned to the side, and gazed directly and purposefullyat the phone. Clearly, it was the most fascinating thing in the roomto this baby. And equally clear was the fact that she was familiar withit. I told him that it wouldn't be long until she was reaching for thephone directly. He nodded in agreement. "I know. She looks at it allthe time."
If a six month-old is fascinated by the iPhone, can you imagine howinterested the one- and two- year-olds are? I see children in strollers allover New York City, blissfully playing with their grown-up's phone.Of course, they are not gaining information they need from gazing atthe outside world. But they are also not crying and fidgeting and beingscolded by their grown–ups-in-charge.
In fact, it seems to me that children are learning an altogetherdifferent message: make a fuss while you are in your stroller or yourcarseat, and your grown-up will hand you the twenty-first centuryversion of the pacifier, the smartphone. It's no wonder that these childrenare learning in a way they never have before. And I must tell you thatfrom an early childhood educator's point of view, this is actually a goodthing.
WHY
Parents have traditionally been proud of their toddler's increasingbrain power. (Consider the "where's your belly?" act between a parentand a toddler as soon as the child can stand.) That is nothing new to oursociety. Unfortunately, parents have often been unable to distinguishthe type of informal learning that a toddler enjoys ("Let's see what'sinside this box") from what we educators call formal learning ("Let'scount to twenty now").
Prof John Medina, in his fascinating book Brain Rules For Baby,states that the brain's first job is not to learn, but to survive. If a twoyear-old child is being pushed by a parent to learn the alphabet or rattleoff "one plus one is two," that child will master those facts, especiallyif he thinks the love of a parent or his own well-being hangs in thebalance. But the consequences can often be severe: you may see anxiety,depression, or a child turned off from learning altogether.
If you are a strong, resilient child who lets things roll off his back,you can learn and survive (see Chapter Four). A parent's harping ismerely a speed bump. A sensitive child, however, can feel tormentedby challenges his brain is not mature enough to receive. Children learnbeautifully when they are ready.
When I began teaching pre-school in the 1980s, parents were drillingtheir children so constantly to learn their letters and numbers that wehad to keep all evidence of formal learning out of the classroom. If wedared bring in a weather chart with words attached to the pictures as Idid my first year of teaching, the effect on the children was immediate.A few children were interested. Some children hid under the tables.Some began punching each other. A few began twirling around andaround. It was not a pretty sight.
I saw kids developing bald spots from twirling their hair whiletheir parents quizzed them incessantly, kids crying when they had togo home, and kids who were generally anxious. And this phenomenonwas occurring across all socio-economic levels. My friends who taughtin the suburbs reported the same behavior.
I worked with homeless children for several years and the drillingwas just as bad or worse. "What's this letter?" "What's this number?"and "What's this color?" were ubiquitous questions. Somehow, thenotion of early formal learning as the key to success had taken root inthe population, and young children were the victims.
We teachers felt like protectors of our students' emotional well-being.In order to learn the important lessons of school, toddlers had tobe assured that they would not be asked to perform tasks that they werenot yet ready to perform. Our children had to learn that they were in asafe place, where no one would push them. Only then could they beginto learn the essential lessons of pre-school: how to get along with otherchildren, how to follow a school routine, how to listen to their teachers,and how to say what they were feeling. The formal learning of lettersand numbers could wait. There was plenty of counting and exposure toreading in our toddler classrooms, but we had to sneak it in, becausethe kids were being pushed so hard at home.
