What can we learn from children's own experience of technology and media outside school - Essay Example

? What can we learn from children's own experience of technology and media outside school? A Discussion Paper of Submission Word count: 1,987 Introduction Media and technology experiences outside the classroom can give learning opportunities for every student. Our collective media and technological culture can function as the foundation for classroom study (Leask & Meadows, 2000: 66). The basic issue is how the media and technology is applied by individuals. By using their understanding of effective teaching and applying advanced instruments, teachers can assist children in inventing, envisioning, and gaining new knowledge and learning levels (Selwyn et al., 2010: 46). By employing technological means and the intellectual tools of instruction, teachers can expose the minds of students to issues and the capability of advanced technology. As claimed by Mimi Ito, learning starts when children and adolescents use the Internet, participate in social media, and take part in other electronic activities (Ito, Baumer, Bittanti, Boyd, Cody, et al., 2009: 105). According to the perspective of Ito, ‘Hanging Out’ is the first stage of participation where adolescents are interacting or communicating with their friends and reading other people’s personal information (Ito et al., 2009: 105). Applying these levels and tools of social media, students create their own self-oriented learning domains with their distinct communication styles and behavioural patterns. It is within these domains that the relationships between youngsters and their learning initially develop (Mizuko et al., 2009:17). The objective of this essay is to review and discuss the effect of children’s experiences of media and technology outside school on their learning capacity. It has been broadly claimed that exposure to media and technology constructively influences children’s intellectual development. However, there are those who argue that modern media and technology harm the natural creativity and innate cognitive strength of learners. These two arguments will be objectively presented in this essay. The Implication of Children’s Exposure to Media and Technology Outside School on Learning Mimi Ito and colleagues (2009: 79-80) explains that once youngsters get in touch with family and friends through social media channels and participate in advocacy groups, they experiences the shared concerns of their learning groups and transfer to another mode of engagement. Usually the own interests of a learner are strengthened by their learning groups or friends. Ito appears confident that this is likely, even favourable, at least for less fortunate learners (Ito et al., 2009: 348). “For youth who do not have easy access to digital-production tools and the online networks of interest-driven groups, local youth media programs play an important role as a place to connect with like-minded peers” (Mizuko et al.. 2009: 349). Adults serve a major function within these programmes. Adults help adolescents to understand the formation of new social standards in the Internet. They function as ‘co-conspirators’ and teachers (Lim, Teo, Wong, Khine, Chai & Divaharan, 2003: 405). They contribute in forming criteria for what falls under knowledge. Reflecting what appears to function successfully online within diverse communities, inside learning organisations “the challenge is to build roles for productive adult participation that respect youth expertise, autonomy, and initiative” (Mizuko et al., 2009: 340). Diverse technology-focused learning separates life and subject matter increasingly (Wegerif & Dawes, 2004: 106). An excellent case in point is media literacy. It requires more than instruction through media; it is building with, and mentoring about, media. Media literacy, as a broadened description of literacy, may be perceived as understanding, evaluating, creating, and recognising diverse nonprint and print systems of symbols (Loveless & Dore, 2002: 39). As emerging subject-matter norms emphasise, information and communication technologies (ICT) can function as a combined and reinforcing instrument in the classroom (Burge, 2000: 58). Learners nowadays live in a world where large chunks of information are transmitted through various media. The American Academy of Pediatrics in 1999 emphasised responsibility of parents for controlling television watching (Lim, Sien Pek & Chai, 2005: 391). The Academy reported, on the basis of few empirical findings, that toddlers should not watch television. Its account also highlighted that if children to watch TV, the outcome may even slow down intellectual growth linked to basic stimuli such as face-to-face communication with older people (Lim et al., 2005: 391). Although these are reasonable claims, there are quite weak scientific bases for them. Yet, there is common belief that personal human interaction is quite healthier than whirling pictures (Rabinowitz, Blumberg & Everson, 2004: 73). Children learn effectively when they can perform tasks in three dimensions, not in two as provided by televisions. A number of the same issues that concern television watching also relate to children’s exposure to computers (Coker, White & Barton, 1993: 242). Regardless if it is the computer or the television, a quite thoroughly selected educational training does not harm children. In actual fact, it appears to be slightly constructive above the age of three (Lim et al., 2005: 392). With all age groups, the Internet and computer activities can be enjoyable, particularly when a friend or a grownup is also involved. However, the evidence is apparent that children have to be watchfully restricted to developmentally suitable material (Lim & Tay, 2003:425). Children also require motivating tasks with friends and educated adults to lead and instruct them. Yet, children eventually have to make sense of the weaknesses and the potentials of the electronic media enclosing them (Selwyn, Potter & Cranmer, 2010: 50). Apparently, learners in future education institutions will work with the entire array of media opportunities, perceiving a diversity of media as ‘texts’ (Watts, Lloyd & Jackson, 2001: 86) to be shared, built, recognised, understood, and experienced. Connecting Children’s Experience of Media and Technology to Education Objectives Assumptions obtained from advanced visual instruments can result in a more reflective or insightful thinking. Children usually depend on their visual ability, even when their abstract learning opposes it (Leask & Meadows, 2000: 93). Collaborative learning, personal experience, and oral explanations in an actual classroom will continue to be vital (Selwyn et al., 2010:62). However there are times when the media can give powerful visual experiences that force audiences to believe what is shown. The visual image has as much influence to give our ideas strength as it does to weaken them (Rabinowitz et al., 2004: 16). Before schools invest more on computers or the Internet, they have to pinpoint major instructional issues that the media and technology will assist in solving. Educational objectives take the top priority; the next move is to understand how to use the media and technology to the making and execution of the curriculum (Coker et al., 1993: 30). There are seven basic factors to take into account when preparing to connect technology to educational objectives (Watts et al., 2001: 85): (1) the requirements of teachers should be a major concern; (2) fairness and access should be given attention; (3) the emphasis should be placed on definite learning requirements; (4) the curriculum must orient the manner technology is applied; (5) the educational agenda has to lead the way; (6) technology alone cannot initiate change in education institutions; and (7) success in the application of technology in schools requires time (Watts et al., 2001: 87). There is no doubt that reality nowadays is being influenced by electronic images and information. If the near future is not TV-dominated, it is destined to be on the Internet (Loveless & Dore, 2002: 49). As the model in television commercials dominates the Internet, it makes mentoring with the Web more challenging. Due to the fact that a great deal of the Web has been transformed into a shopping centre, several governmental departments and schools are resorting to a high-speed, non-commercial Internet (Selwyn et al., 2010: 63). It remains uncertain what form or combination of technology will be adopted in the near future. Whatever kind of technology is used, children normally create the meaning of visual images without wilfully reflecting upon it (Lim et al., 2003: 406). Children deal with the stimuli and dig out understanding. How accurate visually concentrated content is interpreted differs in accordance to commonalities between the content and children’s experiences (Selwyn et al., 2010: 72). Age, interests, and needs are also essential. Learners gain from examining how technologies become meddling with their personal space and lives, and their larger culture. Children require a moral and intellectual reference for evaluating media, and they require instruments for working out the information overload (Leask & Meadows, 2000: 55). School-focused instruction can have a significant effect by assisting learners in creating meanings, understanding ideas and knowledge, and evaluate information located on the computer, the Internet, or the television (Ito et al., 2009: 108). Learners necessitate a new language to make sense of new situations. It is now required to identify how to raise the appropriate theoretical issues in a world dominated by the continuous presence of media and technology. A Further Look Numerous studies have related media and technology exposure to cognitive development and academic performance, with majority of detailed empirical findings indicating that content is the leading integrating variable in that aspect (Burge, 2000: 116). Even though the empirical findings are specifically valid for television, they have a tendency to be valid for interactive media too. There is reliable proof that children aged two and above acquire knowledge from educational media and technology, and there is few reports that exposure to media and technology outside school during nursery years is strongly correlated with different indicators of academic performance even a decade after (Lim & Tay, 2003: 426). Few findings also indicate that early exposure to entirely leisure media and technology, and particularly media violence, is negatively correlated with academic performance and cognitive development (Rabinowitz et al., 2004: 96). Empirical findings concerning the advantages linked to exposure to educational, age-suitable, expert media grants producers of educational programmes a vital opportunity to take advantage of the time that children consume using these media (Rabinowitz et al., 2004: 96-97). In truth, parents and producers can do something to take advantage of the constructive impacts of media and technology and reduce unfavourable ones. Studies should influence the creation of programmes that cultivate teaching and learning. Few findings show that parents can also capitalise on the advantages of media by choosing educational and age-suitable programmes (Selwyn et al., 2010: 88). In sum, most of the studies suggest that electronic media and technology are strong influences on children’s lives nowadays. With developments in media and technology the influence of these channels will likely build up in the near future. Conclusions The difficulty with ICT is that it can cram our thoughts with unrelated pieces of knowledge without presenting the social perspective that would provide these knowledge meaning. This has the potential of making life in highly technological societies across the globe a stream of disjointed common outlooks and ideas (Lim & Tay, 2003: 425). Opportunely, there are several encouraging options. For instance, teachers can keep away from putting children in isolation by matching them up to practise using the computer. Nobody should be imprisoned in the friendless, cheerless world of the Internet. Teachers can also maximise the confirmed capability of computers in offering engaging visual depictions of different concepts. It is important for teachers to bear in mind that the whole curriculum, regardless of the level of technological advancement, should be corrected through their minds (Watts et al., 2001: 85). The most inclusive advanced curriculums and favourable school settings are of slight importance unless they are complemented with good educators. Actualising learned rules and ideas needs planning and continued professional growth. As stated in the article of David Puttnam (2007), a child eloquently quoted “What I do with digital technology outside school- at home, in my own free time- is on a completely different level to what I’m able to do at school. Outside school, I’m using much more advanced skills, doing many more interesting things, operating in a far more sophisticated way. School takes little notice of this and seems not to care” (para 1). Basically, educators have to understand how children’s experience with technology outside school can influence, strengthen, or function as a mechanism for formal learning. References Burge, E.J. (2000). The Strategic Use of Learning Technologies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Coker, D.R., White, J. & Barton, L.A. (1993). ‘When Does a Learner ‘Understand”? Cognitive and Psychological Components in the Process of Understanding’. Education, 114(2), 242+ Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R. et al. (2009). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. New York: The MIT Press. Lim, C.P., Sien Pek, M. & Chai, C.S. (2005). ‘Classroom Management Issues in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-Mediated Learning Environments: Back to the Basics’. Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 14(4), 391+ Lim, C.P. & Tay, L.Y. (2003). ‘Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in an Elementary School: Students’ Engagement in Higher Order Thinking’. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 12(4), 425+ Lim, C.P., Teo, Y.H., Wong, P., Khine, M.S., Chai, C.S., & Divaharan, S. (2003). ‘Creating a Conducive Learning Environment for the Effective Integration of ICT: Classroom Management Issues’. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(4), 405+ Leask, M. & Meadows, J. (2000). Teaching and Learning with ICT in the Primary School. London: Routledge. Loveless, A. & Dore, B. (2002). ICT in the Primary School. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Puttnam, D. (2007) ‘In class, I have to power down’. The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/may/08/elearning.schools. Rabinowitz, M., Blumberg, F.C. & Everson, H.T. (2004). The Design of Instruction and Evaluation: Affordances of Using Media and Technology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Selwyn, N., Potter, J. & Cranmer, S. (2010). Primary Schools and ICT: Learning from Pupil Perspectives. Continuum International Pub. Group. Watts, M., Lloyd, C. & Jackson, C. (2001). ‘ICT in the Literacy Hour: Studying a Classroom Innovation’. Research in Education, 66, 84+ Wegerif, R. & Dawes, L. (2004). Developing Thinking and Learning with ICT: Raising Achievement in Primary Classrooms. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Read More