The Internet Breaks School Walls Down
by Will Richardson
No 2008-04-26 12
Magazine Title: The New Face of Learning What happens to time-worn concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now go online and learn anything, anywhere, anytime? What happens to time-worn concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now go online and learn anything, anywhere, anytime?
Table of Contents1 What happens to time-worn concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now go online and learn anything, anywhere, anytime? Magazine Issue: Oct 2006: Technology in Action TOC Section: Features
Will Richardson [1]
Credit: David Julian
At some point last year, the Web welcomed its one billionth user. Demographers who study such things determined that this person was in all likelihood a twenty-four-year-old woman from Shanghai. As far as I know, no prizes were awarded.
The striking thing to me about that milestone is not the enormity of the number, however. More interesting, perhaps, is that the one billionth person to jump onto the Web could just as easily been an eight-year-old kid from Sweden or the South Bronx (or, for that matter, an eighty-year-old from South Africa) who sat down at a computer, opened a browser, and for the first time started connecting to the sum of human knowledge we are collectively building online. Furthermore, that eight-year-old had just as much ability to start contributing what she might know about horses or her hometown or whatever her passions might be, becoming an author in her own right, teaching the rest of us what she knows.
It's amazing in many ways that in just a few short years, we have gone from a Web that was primarily "read only" to one where creating content is almost as easy as consuming it. One where writing and publishing in the forms of blogs and wikis and podcasts and many other such tools is available to everyone. One where we can connect not just to content but to people and ideas and conversations as well.
This Read/Write Web, or Web 2.0, as some call it, is transforming the traditional structures of many of our most important institutions. How does business change when markets become lively conversations between the consumers who buy their products? What happens to politics when potentially every voter can give immediately direct feedback to elected representatives on important issues, or to journalism when anyone with a wireless camera phone can report on events both large and small? What happens to cultures when bloggers in Beirut and Haifa can connect while bombs fall around them?
And what happens to traditional concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now learn anything, anywhere, anytime?
I find these questions particularly intriguing because my own learning and teaching have been transformed since I stumbled across a blog in spring 2001. I became a blogger that same day, and I've been writing and thinking and learning at Weblogg-ed.com ever since. That is where my passion for these technologies and their effects on teachers and classrooms is chronicled and archived.
Some 2,500 pieces of published writing later (with almost as many comments back from readers), I can say without hesitation that all my traditional educational experiences combined, everything from grade school to grad school, have not taught me as much about learning and being a learner as blogging has. My ability to easily consume other people's ideas, share my own in return, and communicate with other educators around the world has led me to dozens of smart, passionate teachers from whom I learn every day. It's also led me to technologies and techniques that leverage this newfound network in ways that look nothing like what's happening in traditional classrooms.
In this new interactive Web world, I have become a nomadic learner; I graze on knowledge. I find what I need when I need it. There is no linear curriculum to my learning, no formal structure other than the tools I use to connect to the people and sources that point me to what I need to know and learn, the same tools I use to then give back what I have discovered. I have become, at long last, that lifelong learner my teachers always hoped I would become. Unfortunately, it's about thirty years too late for them to see it.
The good news for all of us is that today, anyone can become a lifelong learner. (Yes, even you.) These technologies are user friendly in a way that technologies have not been in the past. You can be up and blogging in minutes, editing wikis in seconds, making podcasts in, well, less time than you'd think. It's not difficult at all to be an active contributor in this society of authorship we are building.
As usual, many of our students already know this. Kids are flocking to the Web by the millions, enthusiastically sharing music, stories, poetry, video, and pictures (some of which we'd rather not see.) They are communicating online, IMing, gaming, participating, producing. It's like using pen and paper and a printing press in digital space, and they are pushing it, stretching their imaginations, looking to us to do the same. Looking to us, as those well-documented (though still relatively rare) problems at MySpace demonstrate, to teach them how to do it well. And we educators can feel the potential.
In an environment where it's easy to publish to the globe, it feels more and more hollow to ask students to "hand in" their homework to an audience of one. When we're faced with a flattening world where collaboration is becoming the norm, forcing students to work alone seems to miss the point. And when many of our students are already building networks far beyond our classroom walls, forming communities around their passions and their talents, it's not hard to understand why rows of desks and time-constrained schedules and standardized tests are feeling more and more limiting and ineffective.
Regardless, we find this era of the maturing of the digital natives, as Marc Prensky calls them, to be a troublesome time. These technologies scare us, challenge us, and the friction between the old, closed-door classrooms and this new, open, transparent world of learning is becoming more and more apparent. Being on the Web changes things. We fear for our kids' safety, and, as educators, we struggle mightily with the way we're losing control over the content we used to own.
It feels as if the ground is shifting beneath us, and it's made us uneasy.
So our response to this new learning landscape has not been universal joy and a rush to blogging and podcasting. In many schools and even states, it's been, rather, a movement to block and bust: no blogs, no cell phones, no IM. We take away the powerful social technologies our kids are already using to learn and, in doing so, tell them their own tools are irrelevant. Or, instead of using the complex and challenging phenomenon of a site such as Wikipedia to teach the realities of navigating information in this new world, we prohibit its use. In fact, at this writing, the U.S. legislature is in the process of deciding whether schools and libraries should have access to any of the potential of the Read/Write Web at all. When you read this, blogs and wikis and podcasts (and much more) may be things that students (and teachers) can access and create only from off-campus.
Credit: David Julian
And so they might never learn to podcast like the third and fourth graders creating the podcasts in Bob Sprankle's [2] class at Wells Elementary School, in Wells, Maine. They might therefore never publish a local museum tour, an interview with a local celebrity, or an oral history about their town that a billion people could listen to. Nor will they ever get the chance to collaborate in a blog with U.S. soldiers [3] in Iraq, like April Chamberlain's students at Paine Intermediate School, in Trussville, Alabama, and learn firsthand what it's like to be a Screaming Eagle. Or share stories about the places they live at Wikiville.org.uk [4], where hundreds of kids from around the world have started writing and connecting. Or teach calculus to thousands of interested readers from around the world, as do the Canadian students in Darren Kuropatwa's [5] math class at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Nor will they fully understand what it's like to be a ubiquitous, continuous learner in a quickly changing world of information that is challenging many of the traditional structures of education. Like me, they may just have to figure that out for themselves.
Most of us now live in a world where, with access, knowledge is abundant, yet we have yet to reconsider our traditional school model, which is based on the obsolete idea that knowledge is scarce. Take a look at the more than 1,400 courses available at MIT OpenCourseWare (see the Edutopia article, "Crack the Books: Teacher, This Book's For You [6]"), which seeks to "provide free, searchable, access to MIT's course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world." It's an amazing array of syllabi, readings, even video lectures from professors that is out there for any of us to tap into, free of charge. It's just one of millions of places where we can learn on the Web, yet most of our students still expect "real" learning to take place only in a classroom.
This is a world where we can easily make connections to ideas and people and build potent learning networks in the process, one where leveraging these networks and tools can yield a powerful online portfolio of ideas and artifacts. Yet we teach in classrooms limited by physical walls, contrived relationships, and mind-numbing assessments. There are a billion primary sources out there -- scientists, journalists, politicians, and the like -- who may know more than we do about whatever it is we are teaching, and, for the first time, we can easily and flexibly bring them to our students to interact and learn. I was a journalism major in college, but when Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Scott Higham, from the Washington Post, mentored one of my students by interacting with her on her blog, she learned more than I alone could have taught her. Even better, we can teach our students how to make these connections themselves, to find the sources and resources they need when they need them, instead of depending on us to provide them.
This is a world where literacy is changing, where readers need to be editors. Now that anyone can publish just about anything in a heartbeat, checking for facts and relevance often occurs after publication. If you don't believe that, go to Martin Luther-King.org, which comes up in the top ten Google search results for King yet is published by a white-supremacist group and is intended solely to discredit his work through duplicity and falsehoods. (See the Edutopia article, "Online, on Alert: Teaching Students How to Interpret the Web." [7]) If our students don't know how to find that out, if we ourselves don't know how to do that, I would argue that we are illiterate. Yet our curricula include little if anything that goes beyond the basic reading, writing, and computational literacies.
This is, indeed, a changed world. From the realities of war to the fears of avian flu and the global-warming crisis, these first few years of the twenty-first century have already tested us in innumerable ways, and the tests show no sign of abating in either intensity or frequency. But I wonder whether, twenty-five or fifty years from now, when four or five billion people are connecting online, the real story of these times won't be the more global tests and transformations these technologies offered. How, as educators and learners, did we respond? Did we embrace the potentials of a connected, collaborative world and put our creative imaginations to work to reenvision our classrooms? Did we use these new tools to develop passionate, fearless, lifelong learners? Did we ourselves become those learners?
Or did we cling to old ideas, old models, and old habits and drift more fully into irrelevance in our students' eyes?
Will Richardson is the author of the weblogg-ed [8]blog, as well as learner in chief at the Connective Learning Group and the author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Adolescence: A Critical Evolutionary Adaptation
Adolescence: A Critical Evolutionary Adaptation
Archive » Adolescence; a critical Evolutionary Adaptation
John Abbott 2008
This Paper has been written in response to an increasing concern that formal education, especially at the secondary level, is failing to meet the needs and expectations of young people for an appropriate induction into adult life and responsibilities. This is a problem apparently common to many of the developed countries. This paper will argue that a better appreciation of the biological processes involved in human learning, and the way these interact with cultural practices, could provide the theoretical basis for a complete transformation of formal educational structures.
http://www.21learn.org/site/archive/adolescence-a-critical-evolutionary-adaptation/3/
Archive » Adolescence; a critical Evolutionary Adaptation
John Abbott 2008
This Paper has been written in response to an increasing concern that formal education, especially at the secondary level, is failing to meet the needs and expectations of young people for an appropriate induction into adult life and responsibilities. This is a problem apparently common to many of the developed countries. This paper will argue that a better appreciation of the biological processes involved in human learning, and the way these interact with cultural practices, could provide the theoretical basis for a complete transformation of formal educational structures.
http://www.21learn.org/site/archive/adolescence-a-critical-evolutionary-adaptation/3/
Overschooled but Undereducated
The Initiative published a pre-production of John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart’s new book Overschooled but Undereducated: Society’s Failure to Understand Adolescence in June 2008. In December 2008 Continuum Books agreed to publish the book in November 2009.
With the publication of Overschooled but Undereducated the Initiative now has, in compact form, the most complete, persuasive and concise argument for the overhaul of current systems of education and a catalyst-in-print for the reassessment of outdated thinking that governs educational policy and attitudes towards learning and schooling in the West.
With the publication of Overschooled but Undereducated the Initiative now has, in compact form, the most complete, persuasive and concise argument for the overhaul of current systems of education and a catalyst-in-print for the reassessment of outdated thinking that governs educational policy and attitudes towards learning and schooling in the West.
The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet Savvy Students and their Schools
Prepared by:
Douglas Levin and Sousan Arafeh
American Institutes for Research
For the Pew Internet & American Life Project
The Digital Disconnect: The Growing Gap Between Internet Savvy Students and Their Schools
Key findings from the study include the following:
Internet-savvy students rely on the Internet to help them do their schoolwork—and
for good reason. Students told us they complete their schoolwork more quickly; they are less
likely to get stymied by material they don’t understand; their papers and projects are more likely
to draw upon up-to-date sources and state-of-the-art knowledge; and, they are better at juggling
their school assignments and extracurricular activities when they use the Internet. In essence,
they told us that the Internet helps them navigate their way through school and spend more time
learning in depth about what is most important to them personally.
Internet-savvy students describe dozens of different education-related uses of the
Internet. Virtually all use the Internet to do research to help them write papers or complete class
work or homework assignments. Most students also correspond with other online classmates
about school projects and upcoming tests and quizzes. Most share tips about favorite Web sites
and pass along information about homework shortcuts and sites that are especially rich in content
that fit their assignments. They also frequent Web sites pointed out to them by teachers—some
of which had even been set up specifically for a particular school or class. They communicate
with online teachers or tutors. They participate in online study groups. They even take online
classes and develop Web sites or online educational experiences for use by others.
The way students think about the Internet in relation to their schooling is closely tied to the
daily tasks and activities that make up their young lives. In that regard, students employ five
different metaphors to explain how they use the Internet for school:
iii Pew Internet & American Life Project
• The Internet as virtual textbook and reference library. Much like a school-issued
textbook or a traditional library, students think of the Internet as the place to find
primary and secondary source material for their reports, presentations, and projects.
This is perhaps the most commonly used metaphor of the Internet for school—held
by both students and many of their teachers alike.
• The Internet as virtual tutor and study shortcut. Students think of the Internet as
one way to receive instruction about material that interests them or about which they
are confused. Others view the Internet as a way to complete their schoolwork as
quickly and painlessly as possible, with minimal effort and minimal engagement. For
some, this includes viewing the Internet as a mechanism to plagiarize material or
otherwise cheat.
• The Internet as virtual study group. Students think of the Internet as an important
way to collaborate on project work with classmates, study for tests and quizzes, and
trade class notes and observations.
• The Internet as virtual guidance counselor. Students look to the Internet for
guidance about life decisions as they relate to school, careers, and postsecondary
education.
• The Internet as virtual locker, backpack, and notebook. Students think of the
Internet as a place to store their important school-related materials and as a way to
transport their books and papers from place to place. Online tools allow them to keep
track of their class schedule, syllabi, assignments, notes, and papers.
Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized—much less responded to—the
new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet. Students report
that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they
use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. For the most part, students’
educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building,
outside the direction of their teachers. While there are a variety of pressures, concerns, and
outright challenges in providing Internet access to teachers and students at school, students
perceive this disconnect to be the result of several factors:
• School administrators—and not teachers—set the tone for Internet use at school.
The differences among the schools attended by our students were striking. Policy
choices by those who run school systems and other factors have resulted in different
schools having different levels of access to the Internet, different requirements for
student technology literacy skills (e.g., some schools require students to take a course
about basic computer and Internet skills, many do not have such a requirement), and
different restrictions on student Internet access.
• Even inside the most well connected schools, there is wide variation in teacher
policies about Internet use by students in and for class. In individual schools,
teachers are the ones who choose whether to make assignments that require the use of
iv Pew Internet & American Life Project
the Internet by their students, allow the use of the Internet (often as a supplement to
other sources and tools), or even forbid its use. There are often wide variances in
teacher attitudes about and uses of the Internet from classroom to classroom.
• While students relate examples of both engaging and poor instructional uses of
the Internet assigned by their teachers, students say that the not-so-engaging
uses are the more typical of their assignments. Students repeatedly told us that the
quality of their Internet-based assignments was poor and uninspiring. They want to
be assigned more—and more engaging—Internet activities that are relevant to their
lives. Indeed, many students assert that this would significantly improve their attitude
toward school and learning.
Students say they face several roadblocks when it comes to using the Internet at
schools. In many cases, these roadblocks discourage them from using the Internet as much,
or as creatively, as they would like. They note that:
• The single greatest barrier to Internet use at school is the quality of access to the
Internet. Many schools confine Internet use to certain times of the day or certain
places in the building (especially computer labs). It is also common, these students
say, for schools to place further social and technological restrictions on their use of
the Internet by, for instance, employing surveillance systems or requiring special
teacher or administrator approvals.
• While many students recognize the need to shelter teenagers from inappropriate
material and adult-oriented commercial ads, they complain that blocking and
filtering software often raise barriers to students’ legitimate educational use of
the Internet. Most of our students feel that filtering software blocks important
information, and many feel discouraged from using the Internet by the difficulties
they face in accessing educational material.
• Since not every student has access to the Internet outside of school, the vast
majority of students report that their teachers do not make homework
assignments that require the use of the Internet. Most students noted that teachers
feel it unfair to make assignments involving Internet use because some in the class do
not have access to the Internet at home. We heard of more than one occasion when a
teacher had made such an assignment only to rescind it because they worried that
those without Internet access would have difficulty.
In light of the fact that the Internet is increasingly integrated into the home and school
lives of students, and in the context of larger arguments about the use of the Internet for school,
students’ concerns can inform several policy debates about technology and education. This is
what we heard:
• Students want better coordination of their out-of-school educational use of the
Internet with classroom activities. They argue that this could be the key to
leveraging the power of the Internet for learning.
v Pew Internet & American Life Project
• Students urge schools to increase significantly the quality of access to the
Internet in schools.
• Students believe that professional development and technical assistance for
teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula.
• Students maintain that schools should place priority on developing programs to
teach keyboarding, computer, and Internet literacy skills.
• Students urge that there should be continued effort to ensure that high-quality
online information to complete school assignments be freely available, easily
accessible, and age-appropriate–without undue limitation on students’ freedoms.
• Students insist that policy makers take the “digital divide” seriously and that
they begin to understand the more subtle inequities among teenagers that
manifest themselves in differences in the quality of student Internet access and
use.
Of course, student use of the Internet for school does not occur in a vacuum. Students’
experiences, and those of their states, districts, schools, teachers, and parents, strongly affect how
the Internet is adopted in schools. Nonetheless, large numbers of students say they are changing
because of their out-of-school use of the Internet—and their reliance on it. Internet-savvy
students are coming to school with different expectations, different skills, and access to different
resources.
Students are frustrated and increasingly dissatisfied by the digital disconnect they are
experiencing at school. They cannot conceive of doing schoolwork without Internet access and
yet they are not being given many opportunities in school to take advantage of the Internet.
Many believe they may have to raise their voices to force schools to change to accommodate
them better. In the final analysis, schools would do well to heed the Latin writer Seneca’s words,
which ring as true today as when they were written nearly 2,000 years ago: “The fates guide
those who go willingly; those who do not, they drag.”
vi Pew
Douglas Levin and Sousan Arafeh
American Institutes for Research
For the Pew Internet & American Life Project
The Digital Disconnect: The Growing Gap Between Internet Savvy Students and Their Schools
Key findings from the study include the following:
Internet-savvy students rely on the Internet to help them do their schoolwork—and
for good reason. Students told us they complete their schoolwork more quickly; they are less
likely to get stymied by material they don’t understand; their papers and projects are more likely
to draw upon up-to-date sources and state-of-the-art knowledge; and, they are better at juggling
their school assignments and extracurricular activities when they use the Internet. In essence,
they told us that the Internet helps them navigate their way through school and spend more time
learning in depth about what is most important to them personally.
Internet-savvy students describe dozens of different education-related uses of the
Internet. Virtually all use the Internet to do research to help them write papers or complete class
work or homework assignments. Most students also correspond with other online classmates
about school projects and upcoming tests and quizzes. Most share tips about favorite Web sites
and pass along information about homework shortcuts and sites that are especially rich in content
that fit their assignments. They also frequent Web sites pointed out to them by teachers—some
of which had even been set up specifically for a particular school or class. They communicate
with online teachers or tutors. They participate in online study groups. They even take online
classes and develop Web sites or online educational experiences for use by others.
The way students think about the Internet in relation to their schooling is closely tied to the
daily tasks and activities that make up their young lives. In that regard, students employ five
different metaphors to explain how they use the Internet for school:
iii Pew Internet & American Life Project
• The Internet as virtual textbook and reference library. Much like a school-issued
textbook or a traditional library, students think of the Internet as the place to find
primary and secondary source material for their reports, presentations, and projects.
This is perhaps the most commonly used metaphor of the Internet for school—held
by both students and many of their teachers alike.
• The Internet as virtual tutor and study shortcut. Students think of the Internet as
one way to receive instruction about material that interests them or about which they
are confused. Others view the Internet as a way to complete their schoolwork as
quickly and painlessly as possible, with minimal effort and minimal engagement. For
some, this includes viewing the Internet as a mechanism to plagiarize material or
otherwise cheat.
• The Internet as virtual study group. Students think of the Internet as an important
way to collaborate on project work with classmates, study for tests and quizzes, and
trade class notes and observations.
• The Internet as virtual guidance counselor. Students look to the Internet for
guidance about life decisions as they relate to school, careers, and postsecondary
education.
• The Internet as virtual locker, backpack, and notebook. Students think of the
Internet as a place to store their important school-related materials and as a way to
transport their books and papers from place to place. Online tools allow them to keep
track of their class schedule, syllabi, assignments, notes, and papers.
Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized—much less responded to—the
new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet. Students report
that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they
use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. For the most part, students’
educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building,
outside the direction of their teachers. While there are a variety of pressures, concerns, and
outright challenges in providing Internet access to teachers and students at school, students
perceive this disconnect to be the result of several factors:
• School administrators—and not teachers—set the tone for Internet use at school.
The differences among the schools attended by our students were striking. Policy
choices by those who run school systems and other factors have resulted in different
schools having different levels of access to the Internet, different requirements for
student technology literacy skills (e.g., some schools require students to take a course
about basic computer and Internet skills, many do not have such a requirement), and
different restrictions on student Internet access.
• Even inside the most well connected schools, there is wide variation in teacher
policies about Internet use by students in and for class. In individual schools,
teachers are the ones who choose whether to make assignments that require the use of
iv Pew Internet & American Life Project
the Internet by their students, allow the use of the Internet (often as a supplement to
other sources and tools), or even forbid its use. There are often wide variances in
teacher attitudes about and uses of the Internet from classroom to classroom.
• While students relate examples of both engaging and poor instructional uses of
the Internet assigned by their teachers, students say that the not-so-engaging
uses are the more typical of their assignments. Students repeatedly told us that the
quality of their Internet-based assignments was poor and uninspiring. They want to
be assigned more—and more engaging—Internet activities that are relevant to their
lives. Indeed, many students assert that this would significantly improve their attitude
toward school and learning.
Students say they face several roadblocks when it comes to using the Internet at
schools. In many cases, these roadblocks discourage them from using the Internet as much,
or as creatively, as they would like. They note that:
• The single greatest barrier to Internet use at school is the quality of access to the
Internet. Many schools confine Internet use to certain times of the day or certain
places in the building (especially computer labs). It is also common, these students
say, for schools to place further social and technological restrictions on their use of
the Internet by, for instance, employing surveillance systems or requiring special
teacher or administrator approvals.
• While many students recognize the need to shelter teenagers from inappropriate
material and adult-oriented commercial ads, they complain that blocking and
filtering software often raise barriers to students’ legitimate educational use of
the Internet. Most of our students feel that filtering software blocks important
information, and many feel discouraged from using the Internet by the difficulties
they face in accessing educational material.
• Since not every student has access to the Internet outside of school, the vast
majority of students report that their teachers do not make homework
assignments that require the use of the Internet. Most students noted that teachers
feel it unfair to make assignments involving Internet use because some in the class do
not have access to the Internet at home. We heard of more than one occasion when a
teacher had made such an assignment only to rescind it because they worried that
those without Internet access would have difficulty.
In light of the fact that the Internet is increasingly integrated into the home and school
lives of students, and in the context of larger arguments about the use of the Internet for school,
students’ concerns can inform several policy debates about technology and education. This is
what we heard:
• Students want better coordination of their out-of-school educational use of the
Internet with classroom activities. They argue that this could be the key to
leveraging the power of the Internet for learning.
v Pew Internet & American Life Project
• Students urge schools to increase significantly the quality of access to the
Internet in schools.
• Students believe that professional development and technical assistance for
teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula.
• Students maintain that schools should place priority on developing programs to
teach keyboarding, computer, and Internet literacy skills.
• Students urge that there should be continued effort to ensure that high-quality
online information to complete school assignments be freely available, easily
accessible, and age-appropriate–without undue limitation on students’ freedoms.
• Students insist that policy makers take the “digital divide” seriously and that
they begin to understand the more subtle inequities among teenagers that
manifest themselves in differences in the quality of student Internet access and
use.
Of course, student use of the Internet for school does not occur in a vacuum. Students’
experiences, and those of their states, districts, schools, teachers, and parents, strongly affect how
the Internet is adopted in schools. Nonetheless, large numbers of students say they are changing
because of their out-of-school use of the Internet—and their reliance on it. Internet-savvy
students are coming to school with different expectations, different skills, and access to different
resources.
Students are frustrated and increasingly dissatisfied by the digital disconnect they are
experiencing at school. They cannot conceive of doing schoolwork without Internet access and
yet they are not being given many opportunities in school to take advantage of the Internet.
Many believe they may have to raise their voices to force schools to change to accommodate
them better. In the final analysis, schools would do well to heed the Latin writer Seneca’s words,
which ring as true today as when they were written nearly 2,000 years ago: “The fates guide
those who go willingly; those who do not, they drag.”
vi Pew
Young Canadians in a Wired World (2005)
Media Awareness Network.ca
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/research/YCWW/phaseII/key_findings.cfm
Key Findings
Young Canadians in a Wired World – Phase II (YCWW II) is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging study of its kind in Canada. Building on baseline research conducted in 2001, the study looks at the online behaviours, attitudes, and opinions of more than 5,200 children and youth from grades 4 to 11, in French and English language schools, in every province and territory.
Conducted by ERIN Research for the Media Awareness Network and funded by the Government of Canada, the YCWW II research provides a snapshot of the kinds of technologies kids are using, the ways in which those technologies shape their social experiences, the challenges young people encounter online and the impact of parental involvement on kids’ behaviour. It also highlights some key changes that have taken place since the baseline research in 2001.
Overall, the story is very positive. The majority of young Canadians have integrated the Net into mainstream activities which strengthen their connections to their real world communities and enrich their social interactions with peers. At the same time, however, offensive content and risky situations on sites young people favour and their own concerns about privacy invasions and authenticating online information raise serious questions about how to provide them with the tools they need to wisely navigate the Net.
Young Canadians are more connected than ever
Access is almost universal. Ninety-four per cent of young people say they go online from home, compared with 79 per cent in 2001. Sixty-one per cent report having high-speed access.
Many students report that they have their own Internet connection. In total, 37 per cent have their own Internet-connected computer. Twenty per cent of Grade 4 students access the Internet through their own personal computer. That number climbs to 51 per cent by Grade 11.
Points of access include more than computers. Twenty-three per cent of students report having their own cell phone, 44 per cent of which have Internet capability. Fifty-six per cent of students’ cell phones have text messaging and 17 per cent have cameras.
Twenty-two per cent of students have their own Webcam. In Grade 11 that number is 31 per cent.
Kids are active users of the technology
Use of email has increased since 2001. Eighty-six per cent of students report that they have email accounts, compared with 71 per cent in 2001. Seventy-two per cent of these are free Web-based accounts such as Hotmail.
Playing games online is the favourite weekday activity for younger students. Eighty-nine per cent of Grade 4 students report playing games online. Games decrease in popularity by grade while instant messaging increases.
Twenty-eight per cent of Grade 4 students use instant messaging on an average school day, a number that jumps to 43 per cent in Grade 5; by Grade 11 that number is 86 per cent.
Chat rooms rank last out of preferred ways to socialize online. When asked what they would do online if given some free time on the Net, only six per cent of girls choose visiting chat rooms, compared with 62 per cent who choose talking to friends on instant messaging.
Young people use the Internet to access traditional media content. By Grade 8, three-quarters (77 per cent) of young people download and listen to music on their computer and one-third (33 per cent) download TV shows and movies from the Internet.
On an average weekday, 14 per cent of students in Grade 4 engage in writing an online diary or Weblog.
Students who have their own computer with Internet access report spending twice as much time online as those who share a Internet-connected computer with their family.
Parental involvement has increased over the past four years
Young people report having more house rules for Internet use than they had in 2001. The most common rule, which relates to meeting online acquaintances in person, is applied in 74 per cent of households. Fifty-four per cent of families had a rule about this activity in 2001.
Almost double the number of students now say they are supervised by a parent when they go online. In 2001, seven per cent said they were mostly with a parent or adult when using the Net, while in 2005 the number is 13 per cent.
The number of Internet rules drops with age. Kids in Grades 8 and 9 have approximately one-third fewer rules than younger kids do, precisely at a time when they are most likely to make friends online and visit inappropriate sites. In addition boys have fewer rules than girls do, even though boys are more likely to intentionally seek out inappropriate content. Internet rules make a difference
Rules about specific Internet activities make a considerable difference, especially for younger children. In households where there isn’t a rule about “sites you are not supposed to visit,” 43 per cent of students in Grades 6 and 7 have visited offensive and age-inappropriate sites. In households where there is a rule, 14 per cent of kids have visited these kinds of sites.
While rules are less effective with older students, they still have an impact. In homes where there is a rule about not visiting certain sites, one-third (33 per cent) of Grade 10 and 11 students visited the sites, while in homes where there is no rule, nearly one-half (49 per cent) of students in Grades 10 and 11 visited them.
The presence of household rules also correlates with an increase in the amount of time parents spend supervising their kids online. In households with no rules, 74 per cent of kids report that an adult is never present when they use the Net; at the other extreme, where several rules are in force, just 22 per cent report that they are never supervised.
Young people tell us their online experiences are generally positive and socially rewarding
When kids were asked to relate a memorable Internet experience, the majority of the experiences reported were described as good ones. The top attributes, chosen to describe what makes an experience good, include: “It made me feel good about myself” and “My parents would approve of this activity.”
Of the 21 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 11 who report meeting an Internet friend offline, 72 per cent say it was a good experience.
Young people who spend more time online each day report feeling more confident than their peers do in their social abilities – specifically in “making friends” and “telling jokes and making people laugh.”
Kids use the Internet to extend their existing social networks and develop new ones within their community
When kids were asked to describe a memorable Internet experience, the largest category of experiences (15 per cent) involved connecting with friends and making new friends. (Eighty per cent of those experiences were described as good ones.)
Of the young people who report having a good experience when meeting an Internet friend, the majority report meeting a friend of a friend, or a friend of a family member (often living nearby).
A growing number of youth report using the Internet with other people rather than alone. This is not necessarily supervised use but “social use” – with friends or siblings. In 2001 slightly more than half said their home Internet use was mostly solitary, while in 2005 that number dropped to one-third.
The Internet is the main choice for schoolwork, but students say they want better authentication skills
From Grades 6 to 11, three-quarters of kids report doing schoolwork online on a “daily or almost daily” basis.
When students are asked how they like to get their information for school assignments, the Net is the clear winner over books from a library. Sixty-two per cent of Grade 4 students prefer the Internet, while 38 per cent choose the library. Ninety-one per cent of Grade 11 students prefer the Internet, with only nine per cent choosing the library.
Despite their preference for the Net, young people recognize the drawbacks of getting information online. When students are asked what Internet-related subjects they would like to learn about in school, the top choice for 68 per cent is “How to tell if information you find on the Net is true or not.”
While the majority (58 per cent) say they enjoy using the Internet for their schoolwork, almost half (47 per cent) feel it makes no difference to the quality of their work.
Mainstream Web sites expose young people to inappropriate content and risky situations
Almost one-third of the 50 favourite Web sites listed by kids incorporate material that is violent (28 perc ent) or highly sexualized (32 per cent). Kids in Grades 8 and 9 include these sites in their list of favourites most frequently.
Two sites that appear in the top four most popular sites with students in Grades 8 to 11 – Newgrounds and eBaumsworld – contain mature content. These sites also appear on the list of favourites for Grade 6 and 7 students.
In Quebec, the top site for girls in Grades 8 to 11 is Doyoulookgood. On this Montreal-based site, users post photos, videos and information about themselves so others can vote on their looks. Members can search the site for people by age, starting as young as 13.
There is a link between visiting offensive Web sites and having negative experiences in the real world. Young people who report being bullied and sexually harassed in the past school year also report the most visits to offensive Web sites.
For some young people the Net is a vehicle for bullying and sexual harassment
The Internet offers young people a place where they feel anonymous. In this environment, a majority (59 per cent) say they have assumed a different identify. Of those students, 17 per cent say they pretended to be someone else so “I can act mean to people and not get into trouble.”
Thirty-four per cent of students in Grades 7 to 11 report being bullied, while 12 per cent report having being sexually harassed.
Among those who report being bullied, 74 per cent were bullied at school and 27 per cent over the Internet. For those who report sexual harassment, the situation is reversed. 47 per cent say they were harassed at school, while 70 per cent were harassed over the Internet.
Of those young people who report being sexually harassed over the Internet, over half (52 per cent) say it was someone they knew in the real world.
Young people are aware of privacy issues but often give out personal information online
Young people are concerned about their online privacy. Two-thirds of respondents (66 per cent) say they would like to learn “How to protect your privacy on the Net” in school. Half of students say they “sometimes” (44 per cent) or “always” (five per cent) read privacy policies on the Web sites they visit.
Ninety per cent of students’ top 50 Web sites have registration procedures in which visitors are asked to submit personal information. Almost one-third of young people say they would give their real name and address to sign up for a free email account (30 per cent) or to create an online profile on a site like MSN (27 per cent). Nineteen per cent would give this information to enter an online contest.
Kids are more likely to divulge personally identifiable information on a commercial site than in an interactive area such as a chat room. Only seven per cent of students would reveal their name and address in a chat room or in a profile on a dating site. However, one-third (34 per cent) of kids would give their email address in a chat room.
Kids’ favourite online spaces are commercialized environments
Almost all (94 per cent) of students’ top 50 sites include marketing material.
Neopets, the number one site for girls in Grades 4 to 7, contains games featuring brand-name products and marketing surveys. Candystand, a site for games featuring Lifesavers candy, is the seventh ranked site for boys in Grades 4 to 7.
Over three-quarters of kids who play product-centred games think they are “just games,” not “mainly advertisements.” Awareness of the commercial nature of these games rises with age, from 18 per cent of kids in Grade 4, to 31 per cent in Grade 11.
© 2010 Media Awareness Network
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/research/YCWW/phaseII/key_findings.cfm
Key Findings
Young Canadians in a Wired World – Phase II (YCWW II) is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging study of its kind in Canada. Building on baseline research conducted in 2001, the study looks at the online behaviours, attitudes, and opinions of more than 5,200 children and youth from grades 4 to 11, in French and English language schools, in every province and territory.
Conducted by ERIN Research for the Media Awareness Network and funded by the Government of Canada, the YCWW II research provides a snapshot of the kinds of technologies kids are using, the ways in which those technologies shape their social experiences, the challenges young people encounter online and the impact of parental involvement on kids’ behaviour. It also highlights some key changes that have taken place since the baseline research in 2001.
Overall, the story is very positive. The majority of young Canadians have integrated the Net into mainstream activities which strengthen their connections to their real world communities and enrich their social interactions with peers. At the same time, however, offensive content and risky situations on sites young people favour and their own concerns about privacy invasions and authenticating online information raise serious questions about how to provide them with the tools they need to wisely navigate the Net.
Young Canadians are more connected than ever
Access is almost universal. Ninety-four per cent of young people say they go online from home, compared with 79 per cent in 2001. Sixty-one per cent report having high-speed access.
Many students report that they have their own Internet connection. In total, 37 per cent have their own Internet-connected computer. Twenty per cent of Grade 4 students access the Internet through their own personal computer. That number climbs to 51 per cent by Grade 11.
Points of access include more than computers. Twenty-three per cent of students report having their own cell phone, 44 per cent of which have Internet capability. Fifty-six per cent of students’ cell phones have text messaging and 17 per cent have cameras.
Twenty-two per cent of students have their own Webcam. In Grade 11 that number is 31 per cent.
Kids are active users of the technology
Use of email has increased since 2001. Eighty-six per cent of students report that they have email accounts, compared with 71 per cent in 2001. Seventy-two per cent of these are free Web-based accounts such as Hotmail.
Playing games online is the favourite weekday activity for younger students. Eighty-nine per cent of Grade 4 students report playing games online. Games decrease in popularity by grade while instant messaging increases.
Twenty-eight per cent of Grade 4 students use instant messaging on an average school day, a number that jumps to 43 per cent in Grade 5; by Grade 11 that number is 86 per cent.
Chat rooms rank last out of preferred ways to socialize online. When asked what they would do online if given some free time on the Net, only six per cent of girls choose visiting chat rooms, compared with 62 per cent who choose talking to friends on instant messaging.
Young people use the Internet to access traditional media content. By Grade 8, three-quarters (77 per cent) of young people download and listen to music on their computer and one-third (33 per cent) download TV shows and movies from the Internet.
On an average weekday, 14 per cent of students in Grade 4 engage in writing an online diary or Weblog.
Students who have their own computer with Internet access report spending twice as much time online as those who share a Internet-connected computer with their family.
Parental involvement has increased over the past four years
Young people report having more house rules for Internet use than they had in 2001. The most common rule, which relates to meeting online acquaintances in person, is applied in 74 per cent of households. Fifty-four per cent of families had a rule about this activity in 2001.
Almost double the number of students now say they are supervised by a parent when they go online. In 2001, seven per cent said they were mostly with a parent or adult when using the Net, while in 2005 the number is 13 per cent.
The number of Internet rules drops with age. Kids in Grades 8 and 9 have approximately one-third fewer rules than younger kids do, precisely at a time when they are most likely to make friends online and visit inappropriate sites. In addition boys have fewer rules than girls do, even though boys are more likely to intentionally seek out inappropriate content. Internet rules make a difference
Rules about specific Internet activities make a considerable difference, especially for younger children. In households where there isn’t a rule about “sites you are not supposed to visit,” 43 per cent of students in Grades 6 and 7 have visited offensive and age-inappropriate sites. In households where there is a rule, 14 per cent of kids have visited these kinds of sites.
While rules are less effective with older students, they still have an impact. In homes where there is a rule about not visiting certain sites, one-third (33 per cent) of Grade 10 and 11 students visited the sites, while in homes where there is no rule, nearly one-half (49 per cent) of students in Grades 10 and 11 visited them.
The presence of household rules also correlates with an increase in the amount of time parents spend supervising their kids online. In households with no rules, 74 per cent of kids report that an adult is never present when they use the Net; at the other extreme, where several rules are in force, just 22 per cent report that they are never supervised.
Young people tell us their online experiences are generally positive and socially rewarding
When kids were asked to relate a memorable Internet experience, the majority of the experiences reported were described as good ones. The top attributes, chosen to describe what makes an experience good, include: “It made me feel good about myself” and “My parents would approve of this activity.”
Of the 21 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 11 who report meeting an Internet friend offline, 72 per cent say it was a good experience.
Young people who spend more time online each day report feeling more confident than their peers do in their social abilities – specifically in “making friends” and “telling jokes and making people laugh.”
Kids use the Internet to extend their existing social networks and develop new ones within their community
When kids were asked to describe a memorable Internet experience, the largest category of experiences (15 per cent) involved connecting with friends and making new friends. (Eighty per cent of those experiences were described as good ones.)
Of the young people who report having a good experience when meeting an Internet friend, the majority report meeting a friend of a friend, or a friend of a family member (often living nearby).
A growing number of youth report using the Internet with other people rather than alone. This is not necessarily supervised use but “social use” – with friends or siblings. In 2001 slightly more than half said their home Internet use was mostly solitary, while in 2005 that number dropped to one-third.
The Internet is the main choice for schoolwork, but students say they want better authentication skills
From Grades 6 to 11, three-quarters of kids report doing schoolwork online on a “daily or almost daily” basis.
When students are asked how they like to get their information for school assignments, the Net is the clear winner over books from a library. Sixty-two per cent of Grade 4 students prefer the Internet, while 38 per cent choose the library. Ninety-one per cent of Grade 11 students prefer the Internet, with only nine per cent choosing the library.
Despite their preference for the Net, young people recognize the drawbacks of getting information online. When students are asked what Internet-related subjects they would like to learn about in school, the top choice for 68 per cent is “How to tell if information you find on the Net is true or not.”
While the majority (58 per cent) say they enjoy using the Internet for their schoolwork, almost half (47 per cent) feel it makes no difference to the quality of their work.
Mainstream Web sites expose young people to inappropriate content and risky situations
Almost one-third of the 50 favourite Web sites listed by kids incorporate material that is violent (28 perc ent) or highly sexualized (32 per cent). Kids in Grades 8 and 9 include these sites in their list of favourites most frequently.
Two sites that appear in the top four most popular sites with students in Grades 8 to 11 – Newgrounds and eBaumsworld – contain mature content. These sites also appear on the list of favourites for Grade 6 and 7 students.
In Quebec, the top site for girls in Grades 8 to 11 is Doyoulookgood. On this Montreal-based site, users post photos, videos and information about themselves so others can vote on their looks. Members can search the site for people by age, starting as young as 13.
There is a link between visiting offensive Web sites and having negative experiences in the real world. Young people who report being bullied and sexually harassed in the past school year also report the most visits to offensive Web sites.
For some young people the Net is a vehicle for bullying and sexual harassment
The Internet offers young people a place where they feel anonymous. In this environment, a majority (59 per cent) say they have assumed a different identify. Of those students, 17 per cent say they pretended to be someone else so “I can act mean to people and not get into trouble.”
Thirty-four per cent of students in Grades 7 to 11 report being bullied, while 12 per cent report having being sexually harassed.
Among those who report being bullied, 74 per cent were bullied at school and 27 per cent over the Internet. For those who report sexual harassment, the situation is reversed. 47 per cent say they were harassed at school, while 70 per cent were harassed over the Internet.
Of those young people who report being sexually harassed over the Internet, over half (52 per cent) say it was someone they knew in the real world.
Young people are aware of privacy issues but often give out personal information online
Young people are concerned about their online privacy. Two-thirds of respondents (66 per cent) say they would like to learn “How to protect your privacy on the Net” in school. Half of students say they “sometimes” (44 per cent) or “always” (five per cent) read privacy policies on the Web sites they visit.
Ninety per cent of students’ top 50 Web sites have registration procedures in which visitors are asked to submit personal information. Almost one-third of young people say they would give their real name and address to sign up for a free email account (30 per cent) or to create an online profile on a site like MSN (27 per cent). Nineteen per cent would give this information to enter an online contest.
Kids are more likely to divulge personally identifiable information on a commercial site than in an interactive area such as a chat room. Only seven per cent of students would reveal their name and address in a chat room or in a profile on a dating site. However, one-third (34 per cent) of kids would give their email address in a chat room.
Kids’ favourite online spaces are commercialized environments
Almost all (94 per cent) of students’ top 50 sites include marketing material.
Neopets, the number one site for girls in Grades 4 to 7, contains games featuring brand-name products and marketing surveys. Candystand, a site for games featuring Lifesavers candy, is the seventh ranked site for boys in Grades 4 to 7.
Over three-quarters of kids who play product-centred games think they are “just games,” not “mainly advertisements.” Awareness of the commercial nature of these games rises with age, from 18 per cent of kids in Grade 4, to 31 per cent in Grade 11.
© 2010 Media Awareness Network
Saturday, May 8, 2010
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