Thank you everybody for coming tonight,
and let's go ahead and try and have an open discussion with tonight's presentation.
I just want to formally talk about screen time.
Screen time is the amount of time spent in front of a digital device
whether it's a computer, a cell phone, a tablet, or even a television.
My name is Martha Campos.
I'm the instructional technology coach for Berryessa Union School District
and my role here as instructional technology coach
is to support families in understanding
what they need to do at home
with the instructional technology
that they're using in the classroom.
So how many of you guys have heard your children say,
"I'm done with my homework, can I go on my tablet?"
Or, "Can I play a video game?"
Or, "Could I watch TV?"
As an educator, I've seen how students react when we have strong conversations
around technology, in particular screen time.
A lot of parents don't know what kids are watching.
So there may be the occasional question that a parent may ask that could be a little
embarrassing and we want to be able to provide them with a safe environment
so they can openly talk and discuss some of their concerns as parents.
Participant: "My kids are more able to figure out how to use this thing.
I'm surprised and so I feel like I'm behind the eight ball
as far as trying to catch up to what they know that this can do."
Connecting families was something we started exploring
early at the beginning of the year and we discovered that parents really
responded positively to some of this work.
So let's get a brave soul to start our popcorn.
Who can read the first bullet?
One of the things that I like to do to get my audience talking
is ask them to participate in different strategies and
one of my favorites is popcorn.
I ask the audience to please just pop out the answer or pop out the question.
Participant: "Here we go. Before cellphones and social networks,
this is how, here finish it up, help me help me."
At some point we had two or three people talking at the same time.
But that was okay, that just encouraged them to pop a little bit more.
I know everybody has thought process
that are going on right now,
so I want everybody to have a voice.
So, what I'm going to have you guys do is, I'm going to have you text me and
what this is, is a Poll Everywhere.
Poll Everywhere is a website where I give information
to parents to text me a question.
Once they give a code that's provided by me, they're able to type a question
and I hope that some of the questions are leading
conversations into what the
presentation is going to be about.
This is an awesome opportunity for everybody
to have their questions be heard.
So this is one way that technology is transformative,
and we can have all of our voices heard.
During the presentation, I asked them to refer to a tip sheet,
and I also asked them to look at the article
that we were using to promote discussion,
and I think having a tip sheet in front of them really
gave them the courage that they needed
to have and the words that they needed to have
to talk to their children at home.
One of the tips was to do a family
agreement and that agreement really empowered parents
to be able to have control over a conversation
and manage screen time in a safe manner for their children.
So, here's the point where I'm going
to have you guys have a discussion
with each other and hopefully you can be
referring to your articles.
After recovered some of the research that was
provided in the case, I had parents turn to each other
to just discuss a little bit more in depth about...
What do you want to do now that you have statistics?
What do you want to do now that you've seen research?
And how are you going to apply this to what you're going to talk to with your children?
Participant: "It's really helpful coming to these classes
to hear other people and their opinions
and you learn from each other
and at the same time you make friends.
[participants talking]
The connecting families resources on Common Sense
has been very useful in the sense that the resources that are available
for them really capture the essence of
what they're looking for as a parent.
Alright, any questions from the audience?
Yes
Participant: "How about the age limit for the social media using?"
Okay, thank you for asking that question.
The question was what is the age limit for social media?
Federal law states that you must be 13 and older
to have a social media account.
Towards the end I like to empower parents.
So at one point, I asked them to please take a Chromebook
to navigate themselves on where these resources were,
so they can feel comfortable understanding
what they were looking at.
Okay, the Chromebooks are being passed around,
so if anybody wants Chromebooks please raise your hand.
I think parents really appreciated the moment,
to be able to see something that I was presenting to them
and actually navigate to that themselves.
I want to thank everyone for giving their time tonight.
I know that it's an evening,
but I would like to thank you.
So we're ready to do the raffle?
The parents really appreciated some of the things
that we used to entice them.
One, two, one, four
We used raffles to get them in the door
and we offered childcare to have their children
do activities while we were working.
At this point, I would like to thank everyone.
For any parent coordinators that are out there
trying to promote this kind of work,
the first thing I would say is be creative,
go out there, don't give up,
try different innovative things,
and if you just spend a few minutes researching
or looking through some of the material in Common Sense,
you'll find that you do not need to have a PhD
to be able to understand some of the things
that are concerning for both parents and teachers.