Seminar 11: Presentation Day 1

I really enjoyed this weeks presentations. I was very impressed by many of the speakers and I am happy to say that I learnt several new things. I especially enjoyed the presentation on the kindergarten school programs. I really didn't know very much about way that kindergartens worked in Canada and I was very surprised to learn about all the different program that are available in other countries and other provinces. I was very surprised to learn that the kindergarten programs in Ontario are quite bad in comparison to other kindergarten programs in Canada and worldwide.

I also enjoyed the Baby Einstein presentation and I felt like I learnt new material even though I did my project on Baby Einstein as well. I enjoyed the interactive activity as it made the class think on their feet and really got everyone involved. I liked how she focused on the specific aspects of one particular video, the Baby Wordsworth as I only researched the original edition for my paper. Her general overview of TV watching was very interesting as well as the specific aspects she mentioned about the pros and cons of Baby Einstein. I found the findings about the coviewing to be very interesting. Although coviewing may in fact increase the infants attentiveness and facilitate learning, I am highly skeptical that this is even possible. Only in very highly controlled environments where researchers force the parents to coview will there even be a chance that they will sit and watch the entire program. It is apparent that from many parent testimonials that their main reason for allowing their baby to watch the program is that it is both educational and an electronic babysitter. Although the latter is definitely true, the educational claims have been debunked several times over. I can only hope that parents will not submit to the claims and instead spend meaningful time with their children instead of forcing them to watch TV.