Sesame Street: The Positive Effects Of Technology On Children

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Wouldn’t the world be so much better without technology? Our lives would be far less corrupt without all these gadgets surrounding us, right? Technology is actually one of the reasons the children of today will prosper and live up to be that much better than the people of the older generations, and it all starts as early as pre-kindergarten. Millions of American children are introduced to some form of educational media outside of school, possibly before they even step into a school. Starting in the 1960’s, some could say that Sesame Street dominated the educational media with their fun and entertaining skits. Sesame Street encourages children to follow along with their fuzzy animal-like creatures while teaching them new and useful concepts, …show more content…

Technology is very beneficial to children in school because it makes education more entertaining, allows kids to learn outside of school, and provides low-cost alternatives to poor families that are just as good as going to school.
To begin with, technology makes education more entertaining for children. According to a paper from the University of Maryland’s Melissa Kearney and Wellesley College’s Philip Levine, the Vice President and person behind the Research and Evaluation and Sesame Workshop team of the Sesame Street Franchise, Jennifer Kotler Clarke agrees that one of the main reasons for the positive effects of Sesame Street is that “the program’s laughs and lessons stick with children”(Tankersley 1). The show encourages children, and parents as well, to follow along with their interactive and educational skits. Each skit is unique and memorable with its own themes and messages, and that is a big …show more content…

In Levine and Kearney’s paper, they state that Sesame Street allows kids to keep up and even go beyond what they are taught in school: “(Levine and Kearney) find that the show has left children more likely to stay at the appropriate grade level for their age”(Tankersley 1). Staying at the same grade level that your teachers and peers expect you to be is very crucial, because it will allow you to get access to special programs and live a wealthier life in the long term. Being able to study and learn new things from the comfort of your home is a very appealing concept, not to just children and teens, but also to adults as well. Since a show like Sesame Street is targeted to a much younger audience, it allows children who haven’t even entered school to get a head start and start off their school year knowing many concepts. Technology use outside of schools has been a very promoting thing to happen in recent years. A few examples could be Google Classroom or news outlets. It allows children to do online work from class at home if you were to be absent for a day or two, and it allows the very curious kids to look up and go beyond what the school teaches and decide if that idea is in a field that they might be willing to look into in the

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