The "Kids know more tech than teachers" Myth

Ever since I started working with Educational Technology 30 years ago, there has been this fear that computers would replace teachers. And now, as we receive a generation of students who grew up with the technology, to the point where we joke that they are born taking selfies, there is a fear that teachers will lose control because the kids know more than they do about technology. But it has been my experience that this is simply not true.

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Yes, they can use the intuitive interfaces easily, not being afraid of exploring and clicking happily away while they play their games before they can read or walk. They can spend hours on social media sending pictures and texting friends. But they still have to learn the most basic use of technology - how to develop healthy human relationships. And they need adult mentors to teach them. It starts at home with the parents, and then at school with the teachers. The screen actually isolates them from seeing the reactions on people's faces when they don't think before writing and may say hurtful things. They are not mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions, especially when those consequences are far off in some virtual land. They don't know how to do good research or evaluate if the news they are reading and forwarding is fake or not. Or if the sources can be trusted. The algorithms they interact with quickly learn what they like and reinforce their own ideas, not challenging them to think differently or look at different perspectives. They haven't discovered all the cool tools you have in your basic Office tools that can increase your productivity and help you learn even more.
More than ever, schools should integrate technology into their lessons and teach kids not only how to use the technology for learning, but also for developing social emotional skills and moral values. We want to build a healthy society in this digital age. The best way to do that is allowing the kids to practice in a safe environment, where caring mentors will guide them. And also find more time at home to stay off screens and just go play outside.
So, teachers, don't believe the myth that kids know more technology than you. You still are the expert on how to educate kids to become healthy and happy. Use the technology to help you do just that.

STEM? STEAM? STREAM? STHEAM? So many acronyms! Which one is right?

I have seen recently a lot of debate on whether to add another letter to STEAM, separate STEM from STEAM, discuss whether STEAM is an evolution of STEM or whether they are two completely different proposals. Should we include reading and writing? Humanities? These are all very valid questions. As different schools adopt this approach to rethinking their curriculum, it is important to understand the foundation of the ideas.
When STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) started being proposed, the idea was to promote a scientific education that would be investigative, contextualized, problem-based and hands-on, bringing in also the practical approach used by engineers (problem-solvers by nature!), making good use of the technology and not forgetting that any of this can be without the beautiful language of mathematics. As the choice of scientific careers was on the downfall, researchers and teachers were seeking paths to reengage the kids and get them excited about science again. A country can only grow when you have good scientists and engineers to build it.
More recently the Maker movement started to work its way inside the schools as well. Interestingly enough, this hands on approach brought in the Arts (artisans, artists) and the convergence of strategies was amazing. If you read Sousa and Pilecki's book "From STEM to STEAM", they bring in a solid foundation as to why the "A" has helped enhance even more the science and engineering projects.
I have been teaching science for 30 years, and for the last 5 years have been helping build STEAM curriculum in schools. When I first started looking at this project-based approach, I was looking at STEM as it seemed these 4 areas naturally converged and used similar methods. But in the middle of the process, we started working with the Arts teachers and the jump in quality was unbelievable. They brought in a perspective of bringing significance, communication, design and the humanity to the projects. They contextualized the use of science and engineering, and gave it meaning. We started not only looking at what we built and how, but also why we built it. We started looking at human-centered design. We were working at a whole new level of thinking about our curriculum, actually, thinking about education and our role as teachers. We started asking ourselves what kind of student did we want to leave our school after 12 years. Basically, when we changed from STEM to STEAM, we changed the principles behind what we believe teaching and learning is about. We began to look at education in a more holistic light, where it is getting harder and harder to compartmentalize the different subjects detached from real-life use and applicability.
So, no matter which acronym you adopt, the main thing is to give kids the chance to learn and use science, technology, engineering, arts and math to learn to grow, to become self-confident, autonomous, critical-thinkers, problem-solvers, responsible, reliable, resistant and happy, able to face any challenge life may bring them!