Last spring some film makers visited our school to talk with teachers and students about technology, education, and how their lives are shaped by their online experience. I spoke with them a couple of times at school and once at a local coffee shop. Not surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to explore the complexities of this brave new world with others who were like me, trying to understand where this is all headed.
They came back to the school a couple of months later armed with cameras and more questions. Following a couple students through their school day, they chose a couple to highlight and even visited their homes. They asked to interview an English teacher and I and we laughed at the obvious yin and yang in their choice, her English classes rock without much technology, my history classes rock with a lot of technology. However, a friend suggested that I be careful, “you don’t know how they are going to edit what you say, you don’t know what they’re going to do with it”. But I’m a sucker for most things like this, it’s hard to say no.
So I spent an hour in the library, sitting in front of a klieg light the size of a tanning bed and trying to answer questions without really answering them. The interviewer is not heard in the final version, so you have to respond to questions in a sort of “documentary-speak”. As I tried to see the director’s face floating between the huge light and the camera, my nervousness (will I get fired for saying this?) and concern (will other teacher’s hate me for saying this?) made me forget my best lines and fumble through my explanations.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyipM9STyY]
Now, eight months later, PBS is going to air the film on January 22. The preview has me more than a little concerned that my friend’s fears may be validated. Growing Up Online seems to be marketed with the same salacious intrigue the commercial media uses during sweeps week. But make sure to read the press release, it sends a different message than the trailer. Hopefully, the film will help us explain to concerned parents that it makes much more sense to give their children experience in communication and collaboration online, than it does to shut them out of it completely and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
In the meantime, I’ll stay tuned.
It was an interesting soundbyte to be sure, and I read the press release as well. It was definitely interesting to see some of the situations that were explored on the show.
I have to agree with the experts in their statement that many parents and educators do not understand and spend so much time focusing on internet safety when, in reality, it is the students and children who know more about computers, the internet, and safety than the parents do. Educators and parents unfortunately have to realize that they must either LEARN from the youth about technology, or they must begin to understand and take a backseat to the knowledge and savvy demonstrated by the students and children.
As a college education student, it is painful when you are sitting in class and trying to watch a professor struggle with the computer in the room, before finally asking for help or having a student say, “Can I help you with that?” In high school, the use of technology within my classes was infinitesimally minimal. There were numerous technology workshops, but no teacher was seemingly willing to employ that which they had learned. In my education classes, there is a massive push towards the use of technology. We are encouraged to work with online portfolios, explore educational technology, and begin familiarizing ourselves with things such as Smart Board.
In the end, it is going to take a few things happening before technological issues between student/teacher and child/teacher are resolved. The elders must give way to the younger ones and accept their knowledge of the internet, and maybe even ask for help every once in awhile. It will take teachers becoming dedicated to learning about educational technology and employing it within their classrooms and changing their methodologies to incorporate such things. It will also require us, the younger generation, to continue to be patient and to be consistently open minded and willing to help, so that we can keep progressing and so that issues can be dismantled before ever coming to full fruition.
Pingback: Review of Frontline’s “Growing up Online” « Clif’s Notes
Pingback: Review of Frontline’s “Growing up Online” | Clif's Notes