The findings in the article discussing media present in the lives of 8-18 year olds does not surprise me one bit! I have a cousin who just graduated from 8th grade and I am perplexed at how the youngest member of my entire extended family knows so much more about technology and the different venues in which technology is available than do all of my adult family members. I actually would have been more surprised if the usage of media by children and teens was less than what results showed in the Key Findings section of this article.
I think that the growth of technology in the last 10 years has had possibly the most significant impact on the development of young people today. I often discuss with my family how my parents use to have to sit in a public spot at the one phone in their house to call their friends. Now, children and teens are in constant contact with each other through the available use of cell phones - texting and calling, the internet - social networking websites and chat friendly applications, and interactive video games. I think this has created a more comfortable and much stronger connection between members of the American youth, however, I think it has also crippled this group of people because they no longer have to encounter a face to face situation if they do not want to and therefore are less prepared for these events.
There are both good and bad aspects of this increase in usage of technology among youth today. The good thing is so many people are connected in a way they have never been able to be connected before. Students are able to be much more aware of what is going on in the world through the use of the internet, they have the capability to meet and make friends much easier than that of yesteryear, and the resources available to students has increased tenfold. However, do students and youth necessarily take advantage of all of these opportunities? Of course not! Even though there is so much more available to the group of 8-18 year olds because of technology, much of their focus is spent on the "social" part of technology. With the capability to find out what happened across the world only ten minutes ago, students rarely capitalize on the opportunity to become aware. On top of that, even though things have been made so much easier for them through the use of technology, students are still not motivated enough to bring that aspect of technology into their academic curriculum in some cases, but would rather use technology for music, video games, t.v., etc.
Being aware of this, whenever I bring technology into my classroom for my students use, I will make sure to highlight out the ways in which technology can really enhance their learning and their opportunity to find resources so quickly. I will hopefully be able to spark their interest and make them aware of how so much of the world is right at their fingertips.
I like the way you see a positive and a negative side to the use of technology. Yes much more information at your fingertips and a wider social playground then the people you see everyday at school or in your neighborhood. Realistically most students don't use technology to enhance learning.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Julianne! I completely agree with you that American children do not take full advantage of technology's benefits. Like you said, the world is right at their finger tips and hopefully as educators we will be able show them that!
ReplyDeleteYour blog is helping me realize the benefit to making educational technologies more appealing to students. Websites that are game format are much more attractive and seem more fun than some traditional websites. There is a huge benefit for technology designers and programmers to combine the fun aspects of videogames into educational websites. It seems to me that a lot of websites have incorporated this fun aspect (such as BrainPOP), but not very many have used social networking. Do you think Facebook or any other social networking websites could incorporate educational stuff? Or, vice versa (that an educational website such as readwritethink.org could create a more social aspect?) Maybe, for example a word of the day to build vocabulary blinking on the bottom of your instant messanger? That might just be more annoying to kids than helpful though... I don't know how well that would fly just thinking aloud here!
I agree, nice post. You raise an interesting issue that teachers don't so much need to teach kids how to use these tools, but to maybe teach them how to use them as learning tools (or learning things that the state of Illinois thinks they should learn).
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