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
Showing posts with label net_generation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label net_generation. Show all posts
Sunday, May 9, 2010
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
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Macarthur Foundation
JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF (application/pdf object) Retrieved 3/28/2010, 2010, from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E}
“If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, it could be said that its fundamental purpose
is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public,
community, [Creative] and economic life.”
— New London Group (2000, p. 9)
Participatory Culture
For the moment, let’s define participatory culture as one:
1.With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
2.With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others
3.With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is
passed along to novices
4.Where members believe that their contributions matter
5.Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they
care what other people think about what they have created)
Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to
community involvement.
Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support
Forms of participatory culture include:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered
around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards,
metagaming, game clans, or MySpace).
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and
modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups).
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal,
to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (such as through Wikipedia, alternative
reality gaming, spoiling).
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media (such as podcasting, blogging).
Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace
Three concerns, however, suggest the need for policy
and pedagogical interventions:
The Participation Gap — the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and
knowledge that will prepare youth for full participation in the world of tomorrow.
The Transparency Problem — The challenges young people face in learning to see
clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world.
The Ethics Challenge — The breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and
socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media
makers and community participants.
the new media literacies should be seen as social skills, as ways of interacting within a larger community, and not simply an individualized skill to be used for personal expression
“If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, it could be said that its fundamental purpose
is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public,
community, [Creative] and economic life.”
— New London Group (2000, p. 9)
Participatory Culture
For the moment, let’s define participatory culture as one:
1.With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
2.With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others
3.With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is
passed along to novices
4.Where members believe that their contributions matter
5.Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they
care what other people think about what they have created)
Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to
community involvement.
Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support
Forms of participatory culture include:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered
around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards,
metagaming, game clans, or MySpace).
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and
modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups).
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal,
to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (such as through Wikipedia, alternative
reality gaming, spoiling).
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media (such as podcasting, blogging).
Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace
Three concerns, however, suggest the need for policy
and pedagogical interventions:
The Participation Gap — the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and
knowledge that will prepare youth for full participation in the world of tomorrow.
The Transparency Problem — The challenges young people face in learning to see
clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world.
The Ethics Challenge — The breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and
socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media
makers and community participants.
the new media literacies should be seen as social skills, as ways of interacting within a larger community, and not simply an individualized skill to be used for personal expression
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation
A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation
Ronald Noel Beyers
Young Engineers and Scientists of Africa Programme, Meraka Institute, Pretoria, South Africa // ron@yesa.org.za
Beyers, R. N. (2009). A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (4), 218–227.
This paper proposes a multi-dimensional concept model of an ICT enabled classroom to highlight potential similarities and differences between where teachers perceive themselves relative to their learners.
This is a generation that expects to actively participate in and through their media, hence the decrease in time spent by teens in viewing television and the corresponding increase in time spent on computers, gaming, and the Internet. Our children now have at their fingertips a virtual world – with all its promises and pitfalls (Lemke, 2003:5).
One of the problems that many societies are facing especially where there is a transition from an
industrial and manufacturing based economy to a knowledge society, is the rate of change. The world that they were prepared for may no longer exist.
On the other hand ‘wiring the schools and populating them with computers is necessary but insufficient to ensure equal opportunity to share in the digital revolution’ (Tapscott, 1988:262). They need a redesigned education system and teachers who have been retrained and reoriented. Innovative technologies cannot make up for educational professionals who lack innovative methods and merely replicate learning models that don't work (Hooper, 2002).
Individuals raised with the computer deal with information differently compared to
previous cohorts: they develop hypertext minds, they leap around (Prensky, 2001).
Jean Piaget’s constructivism is an epistemological view of knowledge acquisition emphasizing knowledge construction rather than knowledge transmission and the recording of information conveyed by others. The role of the learner is conceived as one of building and transforming knowledge (James, Applefield, & Mahnaz, 2001).
Constructionists believe that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs when children create products or artefacts. They assert that learners are more likely to be engaged in learning when these artefacts are personally relevant and meaningful (Bhattacharya & Han, 2001).
Imagine classrooms that incorporate more videos and video games, classes that meet electronically to fit students' schedules, students who choose to learn from each other rather than a professor, and courseware, search engines, and library databases that are animated, image-based, and interactive (Carlson, 2005).
A Proposed Conceptual Model
It is envisaged that the model could provide educators with the means to comprehend the ‘differentness’ and ‘complexity’ of the net generation. A tool to graphically plot individuals within this 5D model is being developed which will serve to highlight similarities and differences between teachers and pupils especially where ICTs are deployed in the classroom. The intention is sensitize teachers to this information so that they are encouraged to grapple with these issues to better understand them for the benefit of their learners.
- The First Dimension – X Axis (Survival Strategies)
- The Second Dimension –Y Axis ( Knowledge and Comprehension): knowledge is not scarce, but meaning-making is
- The Third Dimension –Z Axis (Spatial Orientation): the ability to fly, not just drive. The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done (Burkhalter, McLean, & Jones, 2004:50). Attempting to discover what students think in relation to the problems on hand, discussing their misconceptions sensitively, and giving them situations to go on thinking about which will enable them to readjust their ideas (Bell, Diagnosing students' misconceptions, 1982:6-10). Creative thinking, group problem solving and decision making, as well as the capacity to learn more and more efficiently and effectively which is inherent in 21st century skills. This means that a more sophisticated view of knowledge and learning is required than the one held in the previous industrial era because the economy is now based on selecting, processing and applying information and creating new knowledge and applications (Miller, 2000a).
- The Fourth Dimension – Time: Extending the learning process beyond the confines of the core curriculum and the walls of the classroom should be the goal of all educators to overcome the time constraints imposed by traditional classes and restrictive timetables. Emphasis is on communications including both synchronous and asynchronous methods. Students are able to access the wisdom of experts around the world and receive an answer in a relatively short period of time.
- The Fifth Dimension – Global vision: Teachers acting as gatekeepers of knowledge are threatened by the perception that learners may know more than them. Educators on the other hand strive to release these learners to construct their own knowledge so that the educator can focus on those individuals who really need their attention. Adaptability is a key facet of this stage for without it teachers are doomed to remain in a two-dimensional text-book bound world A key characteristic of the fifth dimension also involves group work and a division of labour where learners are challenged to explore lateral thinking, creativity, problem solving and innovative types of challenges. It is essential that learners are provided with real-world tools and real-world scenarios.
It is recommended that policy makers acknowledge that the vast majority of teachers are becoming burdened with administrative matters and are unable to find the necessary quality time for personal professional growth. If they are not exposed to the benefits of new approaches to education, they will continue to practice teaching in the tried and trusted armchair approach and not actively encourage learners to develop essential 21st century skills.
Learning Communities are not simply another educational fad or a modest type of school reform but an attempt to rebuild society's educational system on a post-modern cultural foundation that is democratic and person-centered rather than mechanical, as well as ecological and life-centered rather than driven exclusively by economic forces.
Implications for the Learner
learners can and must take greater responsibility for their own learning. Leaving learners to their own devices is not being advocated. On the contrary. The educator must still be in control of the process, but their role is more a facilitator rather than physically dictating what happens
at the learning interface where there is greater emphasis on self-discovery after the basic skills have been acquired.
A teacher's place in the digital divide
Warschauer, Mark (2007). A teacher's place in the digital divide. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 106(2):147-166.
Web 2.0: A new generation of learners and education
Rosen, D., & Nelson, C. (2008). Web 2.0: A new generation of learners and education. Computers in the Schools, 25, 211-225.
A five dimensional model for educating the net generation
Beyers, R. N. (2009). A five dimensional model for educating the net generation. Educational Technology & Society, 12(4), 218-227.
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