Technology plays a major role in teenager’s lives. I was surprised to see the results of the key findings. The fact that they can spend 8 ½ hours a day using media while multitasking is a surprising statistic to find out. This pretty much shows that they probably use phones, I-Pods, and Internet surf while they are at school. I think that schools should not allow students to carry I-pods and cell phones during class time. I have observed at many schools where they allow students to listen to I-Pods during their downtime or study hall. Instead, students can be taking part in extracurricular work or studying for a test, even reading a book!
I was also surprised to find out that the time spent in each sector of the media has increased tremendously in the past ten years. However, the only sector of media that has not increased usage per day is reading. Time spent reading went from 43 to 38 minutes per day. Now that magazines, newspapers, and journals are online, everything is right at their fingertips. Teachers should assign students for each subject either a book or an article to read and present it to class, at least once a month. Also, there should be more silent reading that goes on during free time. Students need more exposure to reading in order to gain more knowledge in their life.
Furthermore, just as teachers need to make students read more, the same goes for the parents. It was reported that children whose parents made an effort to limit media in their children’s time had less exposure to media. Furthermore, it was also shown in the findings that students that had less exposure to the media had better grades and were more content. As a result, teachers and parents should make a combined effort to limit media that the students use. Technology can be used in the classroom, administered by the teacher, but it should always be educationally related.
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I agree with you about the importance of teachers coordinating their efforts with parents. Creating electronic media-free spaces will be a challenge, and will need something as engaging to replace it. I would like to hear of any experience you have or will have creating a culture of reading (print) in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that teachers need to encourage reading whenever possible. But are teachers to distinguish between reading from "Newsweek" or the "Chicago Tribune" or "The Wall Street Journal" online or in print? Aren't these the same? Actually, there is the potential that the online version is more up to date. I realize that these are easy options, but it is still the reality. In order to truly achieve this students must be limited in their resources and teachers must spend the time to teach the students how to find accurate and reliable resources. Online there is information to be found that is reliable and educational, but it must be found and everything else must be sorted through in the process.
ReplyDeleteI also have an internal dilemma as I am try to teach and encourage environmentalism. If I truly try to teach this, wouldn't that imply that I should try to teach and encourage the limiting of reading from print services when possible and replacing with digital sources? Is there a difference between the two? I mean with everything on the iPhone these days that allow you to purchase a book wherever and whenever (kindle) you have your phone is that a positive thing? Isn't that encouraging reading? And what category would the Kaiser Foundation put this is?