Professional Documents
Culture Documents
GIUNTI OS
Research methodology
The methodology used to carry out the PatchWorld research has taken into
account various sources, like:
- Analysis and review of the literature (existing researches, studies, reports)
- Review of the web – existing cross-national, national and regional
researches, projects, initiatives, good practices, etc.;
- Review of the ISTAT statistics studies
- Interviews with experts in the field of ICT researches and in the educational
sphere with:
Mr. Mario Rotta, expert on ICT, e-learning and on-line learning
environments
Ms. Rita Minello, pedagogues expert in learning processes and training
methodologies, in room and on-line,
Mr. Antonio Fini, Expert in e-learning platforms and in particular of
cooperative and collaborative systems.
In Italy the access to ICT at home is growing rapidly, especially in families with
at least one child.
Following the ISTAT survey the main technological tools used by the Italian
families are:
Owners of DVD players, digital decoders, mobile phones, parabolic aerials and
PCs have increased in number since 2005.
On the other hand there are families with at least one child under age:
PC and Internet access (69.7% and 51.8% respectively).
These families have also the highest ratio of broadband connections (21.1%)
while mobile phones have reached the same level as TV sets (96%). Also video
recorders (82.4%) and DVD players (75.1%) are commonly owned.
The peak in the use of PCs is between 11 and 19 years of age (more than
75%) and for Internet from 15 to 24 (more than 67%) and it rapidly decreases
with age. The use of the PC in people between 35 and 44 years of age
decreases to 53.8% and the difference in the use of Internet is more contained
(45.7%). Only 16.4% of the people between 60 and 65 uses a PC and 12.3%
uses Internet. For the over 65, the use of these technologies is only a marginal
factor.
A deeper overview
Third, some families suggested that they needed the technology to keep in contact
with distant relatives.
Finally, a number of families regarded computers as an integral part of every day
life in the twenty-first century.
PATTERNS OF USE
Use of a technology is not the same as access. The main use of ICT at
home, according to the families interviewed for the survey, is for the
following activities:
Parents Children
The use of computers for reasons different from work or study, in particular as a
playing tool, has a crucial role in the computer culture.
Another result is that new technologies can help children to express their skills.
The majority of children and teen-agers interviewed declare to prefer the use of
ICT tools for leisure purposes rather than for school work.
Use of the Internet, computer games, leisure activities recorded in the ICT
logs included the following:
• Surfing web sites related to their popular cultural interests.
• Playing networked, online games.
• Shopping.
• Finding cheats for computer games.
• Using chat rooms.
• Using instant messaging (sometimes with webcams).
• Downloading music.
• Downloading photographs.
The majority of children and young people believe that ICT competence
would be important for their futures and careers.
The interviewees who use computer at home for school work at least once
a week are also the same subjects who believe that using a computer can
improve their grades and have most home-based electronic resources.
- The majority of parents believe that skills in ICT would be vital for their
children’s future.
- Their comments are often linked to the importance that ICT might play in
children’s future careers.
- The majority (84%) of parents agree with the statement that ‘Using a
computer helps my child to learn useful things’.
- Families buy computers for their educational potential.
- The majority of parents believe that computers help their children to learn
useful skills and gain knowledge
ICT enable them to find new sources of information; enhance the
presentation of their work; provide more opportunities for
revision/consolidation of learning; save time on mundane tasks such as
editing; and increasing their motivation.
Parents reported that using ICT raised pupils’ confidence and had
motivational effects.
ICT can be motivational because it
à contributes both to making school work more enjoyable and also to the
pupils’ perceptions of achievement;
à is interactive and multimodal texts can be more interesting than books
à but, in their opinions, THERE ARE SOME BARRIERS IN USING ICT for
educational purposes
This shows clear implications in terms of addressing how schools deliver out
of school ICT opportunities for their pupils in ways that make them more
attractive for children
Risks
Some parents identified what they felt to be educational disadvantages in
the use of ICT tools. These included the perceived enhanced ability to
plagiarise by cutting and pasting from the Internet, the possible negative
effects on handwriting and the potential for distraction by non-educational
uses of ICT.
Parents want, but sometimes they don’t have the right competences
- To talk to children about the dangers of ICT tools and Internet,
- To encourage children to look critically at the information they find on
the web
- To have the basic computer security systems in place
- To track and monitor their children’s online activity and movements
WWW.PROGETTOEDUCANDO.COM
The Project Educando is an extra curricular activity for young girls and
boys. It consists in carrying out computer and Internet related activities
with the help of teachers and families (drawing, writing stories, games and
animation, photography, acting etc).
The games favour “free creativity” in children and are also a way to
communicate and to establish social relations with other children of the
same age, with teachers and educators in a protected online environment.
DRAWINGS
The drawings were photographed and published on the project’s website in
a Picture gallery in which the children added a story referring to the
drawings.
INVENT THE ENDING
The children were read the beginning of a story and were invited to invent
the end of it. The project’s website has a gallery of images representing the
beginning of the story and the children have published with the help of their
parents and teachers the end they invented.
COMMUNICATE WITH INTERNET:
EASY
www.easy4.it
The project is promoted by Save the Children – Italy and Adiconsum (Consumers
Association) and is financed by the European Commission.
EASY is a nationwide awareness project for a safe and critical use of new
technologies.
The problems arising from a safe and at the same time positive use of the Internet
are now amplified by the rapid development and diffusion of the new portable
technologies (particularly, but not only, mobile phones) and by the faster
connection speed through which it will be more and more possible to gain access to
new online contents and services.
The starting point is the recognition of the exploitation of the competences and
experiences of young people in defining and influencing new online technologies.
EASY focus on the present and potential risks represented by new technologies
promoting at the same time their critical and proper use.
General purposes
à To promote and protect the rights of children in the use of new technologies, in
particular respecting and updating the principle of the Greatest Interest of Minors.
WEAGREE
For parents to learn more about the video games their children play
This is a web interface allowing parents and children to keep contact with each
other when physically distant.
The designers’ idea was to give children the freedom of space and exploration
knowing that their parents would be always available. It could be defined as a
protected space in which young people can experiment beyond the skills because,
although virtual, adult assistance is given by supports figures and not by
substitutes.
The project has developed the Little Tom Thumb in the Web to make parents and
children aware of the norms for a safe navigation and to offer recommendations for
a proper use of the web.
Also this second edition is sponsored by the Ministry of Communication, the Polizia
Postale, the Lazio Region, UNICEF and, the last entry, Iscom.
On its part, Symantec has developed the Little Tom Thumb in the Web project to
make parents and children aware of the norms for a safe navigation and to offer
recommendations for a proper use of the web.
The project includes a guide to safety and to a proper use of technologies which will
be used during the year as a support for a series of activities on the territory
addressed to parents and teachers and supplying concrete elements of support for
a safe Internet navigation for children.
The project includes a guide to safety and to a proper use of technologies which will
be used during the year as a support for a series of activities on the territory
addressed to parents and teachers and supplying concrete elements of support for
a safe Internet navigation for children.
Project ReMida21
Italian network for XXI century didactics and learning
Cybermondo
The important information for parents and children on the Internet. Risks for
children: it is possible to keep the use of the computer under control…
FAMILY SPACE
Stories that parents and children want to write together on the web.
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