I really appreciated that we had the chance to talk to Jesse Miller about our roles as teachers supporting students in their relationships with technology. Although I did not agree with all of Jesse’s conclusions, I appreciated how much experience he had in the field and how candidly he spoke about these issues. Here are my three favorite things he talked about.

Teacher – Student Interactions Online

In his talk, he shared a story about a teacher who accidentally saw one of their students on an online dating site. As someone who does not use online dating sites and who teaches young children, I had never considered that this could happen. After this conversation, I started to think more about places where my students might see my online presence. I am fairly conservative about my online presence, except when it comes to the contra dancing community, so I don’t think I have much to worry about.

Students and Social Media

I am very concerned about having good conversations with students about social media. Jesse Miller advocated heavily for talking to students about social media, but he was not very specific in the ways that teachers should start this conversation. Since his presentation, I wanted to get a better sense of how teachers broach this topic, so I found a few good resources online. This article highlights a framework for parents talking to children about social media that I think would be helpful for teachers.

Infographic by: Sophia Choukas-Bradley

Digital Tech Addiction

In his Ted Talk, Jesse Miller spoke some about how parents use tech to placate young children. However, he did not talk very much about the implications that this parenting strategy can have on kids in the long run.

After this presentation, I went on to listen to a podcast by MindShift on tech addiction that helped me fill in some of the gaps on the long term impacts of tech as a strategy to help kids regulate their feelings.

I am very grateful that Jesse Miller came into our classroom and started these conversations between our classmates because I think that they will make us better teachers in the end.