On Media Literacy

"You Won't Be Needing Your Laptops Today." 
   Wired Bodies in the Wireless Classroom

The premise of this article by Kevin M. Leander is that even when new technological tools are introduced into the flow of traditional school practice and valuing, they fail to change the "look and feel" of schooling marked by the conservation and transmission of pre-defined categories of knowing and being. The author cites Hodas (1993) research, remarking that the structures of school and teaching practices have remained essentially the same for 700 years. But new developments in information and entertainment technologies, being social, not institutional, may bring hope that they will draw the classroom out of the dark ages and into the 21st century. 

Somewhat implying their obsolescence from my perspective, Leander says the blackboard, overhead projector and the photocopier represent and enforce the concept of traditional school space-time and the teacher's role of authority. This may be true, but this technology likely will be in use for quite some time. It works. And it's far from obsolete.

These tools help enforce the commonality of a lesson taught and are practical and efficient to gauge a student's understanding of subject matter along with performance against her or his peers. I have a hard time trying to figure how education could work effectively devoid of these classroom "trappings." Should students be given free reign to learn however they'd like with their laptops so long as it fits within the subject matter? And do it wherever they want to so they're not constrained by schoolroom time-space traditions? 

I'm all for individual technology in the classroom and about a third of my students this semester bring laptops in with them for note-taking and subject research. But there is a dilemma, as the author points out, in laptops and wireless internet in the classroom. Just because you can use the technology, it is not a replacement for moving beyond the containment and closure of traditional school space-time. Students need the structure. And instructors have to have it to teach.

Where wireless/internet technology could work much better than it is (and work really well) is in bringing the classroom home with students. An extension of schooling outside of school time-space, not as a replacement for it. Getting deeper into a subject. Extra credit research. On homework. And during the summer months. This isn't being done enough. My daughter has told me that she has no problem being "in school" during the summer - so long as lessons can be delivered to her over the internet and can done within the time-space of summer vacation.  

It's hard for me to imagine "re-imagining and re-enacting the social life of schooling as a spacial practice" experiencing what I do in my classroom. I just don't feel much learning would take place. Many of my students have told me they like how structured my instruction is. They learn better from it and wish other teachers were more like me.

Preparing for the Next Generation

Interesting article by Alan J. Porter. Mr. Porter posits that despite advances in technology to deliver information, attitudes and assumptions about how information is structured and delivered hasn't. Essentially, information comes to us in a book-based paradigm where pages are turned one-by-one to advance from beginning to end of a piece. The author claims that this will not be acceptable for the new generation of information consumers.

In Questioning the Old Paradigm, he mentions that instead of strictly enforced hierarchies, the digital generation will instead access essentially a "flat ocean that users search instead of navigate, then dip in to find the components they need to build their own solutions." Okay, I get this. And I think it's true. But it's important to be mindful that this addresses just the process, not the outcome.

I too have a teenage daughter and I've watched her essentially do the same thing the author has witnessed with searching and networking to find information on a school homework subject. Incredibly efficient. She can find more material on a subject in 30 minutes than she could find in the library in 3 hours. But what about the outcome? Is finding information efficiently akin to learning it efficiently?

A somewhat similar situation occurred in my writing lab last Friday morning. Instead of drafting their manuscripts (the intention of the lab) a handful of students were Facebooking and compiling snippets of content off the internet into somewhat convoluted listings to presumably be formatted later into their work. Generally, they seemed quite pleased in what they felt was efficient use of limited lab time. When I asked one student what he was doing, he said, "writing." Hmm.

The issue in both these cases is fragmentation, both in process and content. First with lack of synthesizing all this fractured search-based information and secondly, doing so on a path that leads to true understanding of a subject. What I believe traditional hierarchies that books provide us with is a framework for learning a subject based on the author's knowledge of how it can best be learned and then, giving us a way to deepen our understanding of the subject. 

No question the digital generation can find information quickly. But this shouldn't imply that they're learning quickly. If time isn't spent concentrating and contemplating on a subject, we run the risk of superficial understanding. No depth, only factoids. If my daughter was networking with true subject matter experts on her homework, that's one thing. But I'm still waiting to hear that she's come across one. And until she does, I'll still feel better seeing her augment her studies with a real live book.