Case study:

New media in education

Technology has become an important part of education, particularly in expanding access to education. Many people go to school, find information, and do research on the Internet. They can download and read books, they can learn new skills by watching videos, and they can communicate with others who have similar educational goals and interests.

Consider what takes place in a typical traditional classroom. A teacher presents information; the students study it and practice new skills they have learned. Students may also need to find additional information outside of the classroom and present it to the teacher and their classmates. Technology can be useful in all of these activities: presenting, sharing, and finding information. Some teachers are using social media such as biogs, wikis, and YouTube in their classes. They say these new developments can improve education.

Social media - a distraction?

New media may offer advantages for education, but some people are concerned that technology can also be a distraction and may even get in the way of learning. For example, many university students bring their laptops to class so that they can take notes. However, this is not always exactly what happens. One professor at a U.S. university was pleased to see her students working on their computers continuously during her class. However, as she walked around, she noticed that some students were also checking Facebook, sending instant messages, or surfing the Internet. She also noticed these students were not doing as well in her class. She decided to prohibit laptops in her classroom. She is not alone in her concern. In 2010, an American university tried to block access to all social media for a week. The experiment did not work; most students found ways to access their e-mail and Facebook accounts anyway.

Some education professionals disagree with this effort to limit the use of social media in education. They argue that teachers should not fight against technology and that they should consider instead the ways in which it can enhance education. For example, the students in the class may have been sending instant messages to classmates in order to explain something the professor said. Or they may have been surfing the Internet to look up the definition of a word or to find more information about a concept in the lecture.

Are new media changing how we think?

It is clear that the Internet is changing many aspects of our lives, from communication to education. Some scholars believe it is also changing how we think and learn, particularly in two areas: memory and attention. A good memory has always been important for success in school. In the past, students had to learn and remember a lot of things - names of important people, lines of poems, mathematical equations. Today, they can find these things instantly on the Internet by looking them up on Wikipedia or doing a Google search. We don't need to learn and remember them. In a way, the Internet has become our collective memory.

Regarding attention, one view is that before the Internet, we read and thought more deeply, with longer periods of concentration. With the immediate access and constant connection of the Internet, people can get answers right away. Instead of reading a whole article, they read just a few sentences or paragraphs. They do not focus on one thing for very long. Traditional media have made changes in response to this new way of reading. Most newspapers now publish shorter articles. One of the most famous papers in the United States, the New York Times, now provides short summaries of its most important stories on the second page so that readers do not need to read the longer articles.

New technology allows users to multitask; that is, they can do several different things at the same time. For example, students can ask a librarian a question online while they are reading a Wikipedia entry and listening to music. Many people are proud of their multitasking skills, but is multitasking really a good strategy? In fact, several studies have shown that when we multitask, we do several things badly. A University of California study found that when people work at more than one task at a time, they work faster but they produce less. Multitasking is particularly common with new media. Young people, especially, often use several forms of media at once. They may listen to music, check their Facebook page, and play an online game, all at the same time. A 2010 study in England revealed that the average Briton spends seven hours a day using some form of media. However, the figure is closer to nine hours if you count the time that they spend on different forms of media at the same time. A 2006 study of young Americans found similar media multitasking. Almost 75 percent of the people in the study said that they sometimes use more than one form of media at the same time (see Figure 6.4).

Are these developments all bad? Some scholars and leaders believe that technology is making us stupid. We cannot pay attention to anything for very long. We learn and remember very little of importance. Opponents have a different perspective. They argue that the same thing was said about television, the printing press, and even the alphabet! They believe that the wide range and complexity of information makes us smarter, not dumber. It helps us learn to respond to multiple messages, to manage massive amounts of information, to make connections, and to decide what is important. These are exactly the ski1ls that we will need as technology continues to develop and the amount of available information continues to expand. Just as tools, language, and literacy helped early human beings survive long ago, technology may help human beings survive into the future.

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A reflection essay on learning and thinking with new media?

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A reflection essay on learning and thinking with new media The article Learning And Thinking With New Media Academic Encounters by William J 2012 has advanced my knowledge on the effects of new media ... View the full answer