On Your Mark. Get Set. Reform!!!! Now Hurry Up!!!

Blogging around issues of technology and society reminded me of a report the class read in the Leadership and Technology course last semester.  Jenkins et al. (2009) wrote Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture in which they claim that students, who are indeed citizens of society, utilize technology to participate with peers locally, nationally and internationally…..and they use technology in very different ways.  According to the report, a teens use of technology is quite remarkable.

57% of teens who use the internet – could be considered media creators. For the purpose of this study, a media creator is someone who has created a blog or web page; posted original artwork, photography, stories, or videos online; or remixed online content into their own new creations.  Most have done two or more of these activities.  One-third of teens share what they create online with others, 22 percent have their own web sites, 19 percent blog, and 19 percent remix online content (p. 3).

With this knowledge, should we as educators be rethinking how we present content?  Perhaps presenting content itself needs to be rethought.  Perhaps we need to think about providing a structure in which students explore, experience and rethink ideas while participating in a community.  In fact, Jenkins et al., believe that the purpose of education is to give students the tools to fully participate within a community, and to do that we need to focus on new media literacies that help develop “social skills developed through collaboration and networking” (p. xiv).  The list of social skills that are developed are not your usual list:

• ·      Play
• ·      Performance
• ·      Simulation
• ·      Appropriation
• ·      Multitasking
• ·      Distributed cognition
• ·      Collective Intelligence
• ·      Judgment
• ·      Transmedia navigation
• ·      Networking
• ·      Negotiation

That is indeed quite the list!!  Are the education systems of the world teaching students these skills? Are we helping students understand the importance collective intelligence has on understanding the world and issues within it?  Who owns intellectual property in this environment or does it even matter?  Are we allowing students to fully play in a way that introduces them to a whole new way to explore, building on natural curiosity…..uninterrupted by curricular goals?  When I first read this report, it was as if a light bulb came on.  Finally I was reading a piece of work that in some ways was able to put into words what I had been thinking.  The education system needs to change.  Teachers need to adapt and change.  Students need to be given the freedom to play within a media culture that allows them to explore ideas with the world around them.

Education as an institution is bent on protecting students from the evils of the internet.  Fact is, today’s youth know more about media than most parents and teachers.  They have hit the ground running, and I believe are tired of waiting for the rest of us to catch up. Jenkins et al, believe we need to change our approach from one of protection, to one of engagement.  “We do not need to protect them (youth) so much as engage them in critical dialogues that help them to articulate more fully their intuitive understandings of these experiences” (p. 15).

In fact, not allowing students to participate in a culture of collaboration, spurred on by social media and other media may be doing them a disservice in the 21^st century.  We need to encourage the development of a participatory culture.  The digital divide is no longer just about who has technology and who doesn’t; it’s about who is able to participate in developing shared understandings and who doesn’t.  Jenkins et al refer to this as the participation gap, which they define as “The unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge that will prepare youths for full participation in the world of tomorrow” (p. xii).

We keep talking about educational reform and change; yet seem unable to move forward with the initiative.  What is the catalyst needed to move in this direction?

Reference List

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robison, A.J. (2009). Confronting the challenges of a participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Youth: Mobile and on the Move. Educators Need to Catch Up.

When I view digital media, I rarely if ever view it as something that affects my social standing.  For me, digital media means communication.  That is the function it serves.  There are so many options when communicating these days.  I can communicate via phone calls, via email, via social media such as facebook, and via text message.  I can skype over my computer or over my cell phone.  I can use face time on my iphone.  The possibilities are endless.  In fact, sometimes I have difficulty tracking information from conversations, as one conversation can begin one day on the cell phone, continue the next day through text messaging, and finish over a facebook message.  The through line of solid and cohesive thought is tough to put together.  I am frustrated by this.  Not everyone shares my views however.  Apparently, a generation gap does exist.  It is a gap that involves vastly different perspectives on mobile communication.

Gitte Stald (2008) has examined the connection between mobile communication and youth identity and believes that unlike their parents, youth of today view mobile communication as practical of course, but also take note of its’ social meaning.

Because of the always there, always on status of the mobile and the pace of exchange of information, and because the mobile is the key personal communication device for so many young people, it becomes important in establishing social norms and rules and in testing one’s own position in relation to the peer group (p. 143).

Was there anything in my youth that had such a profound effect on how I interacted with my peers?  I struggle to find anything that matches the effect that Stald states.  Stald goes on to describe today’s youth as being

 . . . on the move within and between physical locations but also in virtual spaces, in well-known (as well as foreign) areas. They are processing, digesting, and exchanging information, deliberating what to do, what to choose, what to think (p. 145). 

The mobile device appears to be the perfect side-kick, encouraging, and helping the youth of today to be on the move.  “We are mobile, the device is mobile with us, but above all information is mobile, meaning that it is available independent of time and space” (p. 145).

The social connection that comes from the use of the mobile I believe influences youth more than we can imagine. The influence I don’t believe is a negative one.  Our students do function in physical worlds and virtual worlds, at times simultaneously.  They use mobile technology effortlessly, and at the same time are very aware of the social connection.  We as teachers however need to tap into this connection between the mobile and youth.  For us this use of technology and it’s connection to social status is foreign……at least foreign to the same extent.  Our students have changed.  Our education system has not.  A shift is required.  Information is no longer static, and in fact, it is extremely fluid.   Our students are not static, and they are on the move constantly – physically and virtually.

I as a 47yo, may have difficult in creating a degree of intimacy in a digital conversation that matches my face-to-face experience.  However, today’s youth appear to have an ability to create shared experiences via digital media, regardless of the situation.

Most young users, however, are able to establish intimate spaces for shared presence when they talk on the phone or have a text-message conversation.  The physical space is shut out, no matter if it is the bus, the crowded street, or the bedroom (p. 154).

Unlike myself, youth are able to establish a feeling of trust and social bonding through this type of communication.  The environment is not foreign, and they are at ease.  Educators and specifically the education system need to adapt to capture the attention of our students.  We need to let them, with guidance, explore the world around them….physically, and virtually.  We need to know and discover how to let them do that.  A paradigm shift is on the horizon, whether we want it or not…..whether we are comfortable with it, or not.

Reference List

Stald, G. (2008).  Mobile identity: Youth, identity, and mobile communication media. In Buckingham, D. (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media (pp. 143-164). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.   doi:10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.143