Television: Teachers’ Friend?!
In the November 2011 issue of Kappan, Deborah L. Linebarger (deborah-linebarger@uiowa.edu), Director of the Children’s Media Lab at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (pp.62-65) compiles previous and current research, including a number of recent, large-scale research projects, that confirms television’s value in teaching rudimentary concepts to children, especiall those from low-income homes. She offers support for the position that the much maligned medium can help create a learning environment that dramatically supports learning, especially for kids who struggle with basic content and skills. Linebarger states, “Overall, the evidence collected over the last 40 years has borne out what children’s media advocates have always believed: Television can play a positive role in child development, and public television, in particular, represents an effective and relatively inexpensive means by which to deliver high-quality educational content to the 99% of American kids, affluent and poor, who have access to a television at home.”
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