When to Start?

By the time your child is a toddler, he has probably figured out how to turn on the television, DVD player, and your home computer, and imitates you by banging on the keyboard. Toddlers love to “talk” on the telephone and point the remote control at anything, and can’t escape the flood of technology that is present in our society today. Since you cannot keep this technology from young children, how do you go about teaching your children how to use it? What age is appropriate for teaching children about technology, and what are the benefits?

Infants and Toddlers

There is an abundance of technological toys available for even the youngest of children, including interactive language-teaching tools, but they may not be developmentally appropriate for the younger-than-pre-school set. In fact, the

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports that “while a market for computer software designed specifically for toddlers and young children continues to grow, little is known about the actual impact of this new technology on children’s developing minds and bodies.” While it probably doesn’t hurt to expose your child to safe technological toys, as a parent, you should consider whether there is any real benefit to replacing your reading to and talking to your little one with technology. Because human interaction is crucial, and you need to assist your child in developing his social skills, technology may be inappropriate at this age.

Three to Eight Year Olds

As children get older, though, parents should think of technology as a tool, one in an array of learning materials that children may use, but that parents control. Remind your child that there are many benefits to technology, but that, without active human participation, the benefits are negligible.

Determine the difference in active learning, in which a child interacts with software, and passive learning, in which children are presented with the on-screen equivalent of a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. Technology that encourages active learning is much more likely to teach children new skills.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), offers some excellent suggestions for determining what software is good for children. If the software “uses pictures and spoken instructions rather than written ones so that children will not need to ask for help, [allows] children [to] control the level of difficulty, the pace and direction of the program,” and “children receive quick feedback, so they stay interested,” then you’ve likely found a suitable program that will engage your children and build their computer literacy and verbal literacy skills. Look for software that encourages children to use their imagination and that appeals to their sense of sight and sound.

Keep a Balance

Because you are a parent, you are your child’s first teacher, and you have a great deal of influence over what your child learns. Stay involved in the sorts of computer activities in which your child participates. There are many websites out there designed for children, and many of them have superb learning games that keep children engaged and sharpen their skills.

Technology should be part of a balance, though, of a larger learning environment. While your child will enter an academic and work world in which technology is an integral part, and he should be exposed to technology as part of his education, don’t let technology use come at the expense of reading, social interaction, and physical exercise.

Remote control technology hasn’t changed too much…you push the level on the control and the plane turns to the left. It seems as if the whole thing is magic. It does seem like that radio control is a magical invention of the current era. Yet, it has a very long and interesting history.

Research shows that the origin of the word radio suggests it was from the prefix radio that seemed cornered with radiations. It seems that this word was born before Hertz’s discovery of electromagnetic radiations.

What was once radio-telephony and radio-telegraphy eventually just got called radio. Dee Forest was one of the initial people to modernize the term. Who is Dee Forest? Forest was an American pioneer in the wireless transmission field.

In 1893, Tesla showed what wireless telegraphy was like, eight years after Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves. Jagdish Chandra Bose exploited electromagnetic waves to set off gun powder. Due to this, the dawn of wireless/radio communications and all the applications of science occurred. The year was 1894.

However, in 1896, wireless signals were being transmitted up to 30 miles in distance. Tesla patented the first four tuned circuit wireless system. It was seen as the original equipment in wireless transmission. Marconi used this technology and spanned the English Channel with Tesla’s circuit system.

With the new century dawning, it was also the beginning of other things regarding the technology. However, Marconi was able to perform the first-ever trans-Atlantic radio signal on Dec. 12, 1901. J.C. Bose patented crystal sets which were used detect and receive radio signals.

It has been argued and disputed numerous times who exactly came up with the idea of wireless transmission. Was it Tesla or Marcon? It would seem that, despite financial troubles that he suffered, Tesla was the original pioneer. It seemed that one more also played a part…but Popov was said to be a pioneer.

This is not really that important. However, the truth is that wireless transmission lines were the best and finest inventions the science history. Between 1900-1909, many experimenters and entrepreneurs were working with wireless radio. However, it was close to the end of this first decade that hobby interests began spark.

Radio signals were once noisy and inefficient. This changed with the alternator-transmitter and arc-transmitter came along.

Radio transmissions and receivers were revolutionized by the vacuum-tude diodes and triodes inventions. With the triode amplifier generators, audio was made possible. It then started the era of audio radio. Oddly enough, vacuum tubes were vital parts until the introduction of the transistor. It made the equipment much more concise, precise and mobile.

Another advancement in radio controlled hobbies came when AT&T used vacuum tubes to broadcast voice over the phone lines which lead to experiments with long distance speeches. Commercialization was thought about from the very beginning but there was no way to curb transmissions to paid users. Broadcasting continued to remain commercial free.

AT&T then incorporated advertising to finance their programming. To this day, it is still being used.

However, there are always improvements in the field of radio broadcasting. The latest being Internet radio. While radio is never going to go out of date, it will forever be taking on new formats.

It doesn’t matter who did want in the beginning, only that what they did created what people see today. From the first lines of transmissions to Internet radio, the invention has come along way.