I chose to watch the blogs in the order they were filmed. It was interesting to watch Growing Up Online (2007) and how it was completely focused on parents watching their children interact on the Internet. The major question from this video is how do we protect children from the Internet? Students don't have to read novels anymore - they can just read SparkNotes. Some students tend to spend a majority of their time online and wouldn't know what to do without it. Anorexic girls have a place to go for "cheering" each other on. And cyber-bullying is running rampant. One parent was trying to figure out how to "control" her children's use of the web. But I don't believe it is an issue of "control." It's an issue of needing to be able to TEACH them to use the Internet to their benefit. We need to teach them to use the web responsibly and as one person from the video put it: "Teach good cyber citizenship."
As I watched the more current Digital Nation video, it's interesting to see that in just a couple of years, the Internet is now a part of EVERYONE'S life. Even the Jewish grandmother that has an online cooking show! A major concern is whether we are good at everything we do while we multitask. Or are we just good at multitasking? It appears that the latter is the case, and that we aren't excelling at everything we do while we multitask. We're just proud of being able to get so many things done at once.
Asia is suffering from an online game addiction and has set up "Internet Rescue Schools." Will America actually get to this point? We somehow need to avoid causing online “addictions” and figure out the best way to teach with technology. It is clear that children respond well to its use in the classroom. (i.e. the Bronx high school whose test scores rose with the implementation of technology.) But we also need to find a balance. Virtual worlds are becoming more popular everyday. Agoraphobics can use Second Life to create a world in which they can actually function. And IBM utilizes Second Life to save money and allow for people to work from home yet connect with teammates from all over the world. While I have concerns that people need to experience life outside of these virtual worlds, I feel that they certainly have a benefit. And over time we will more clearly see that benefit. As said in the video, hopefully we will successfully "find our balance" with mixing our real world with the world of technology.
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I also worry about multi tasking, as I am a huge multitasker myself and sometimes worry about the "jack of all trades master of none" Philosphy. Sometimes I just don't see any way around it. That seems to be what society calls for. With the world changing the way it is, do we all need to be experts at one thing or are problems better solved when we have many minds working together with small amounts of knowledge about many topics?
ReplyDeleteFinding our balance is the key, but how is the question. I find myself continually multi-tasking. At the moment, I am reading a chapter for another class, checking my blogs, multiple emails and the weather all simultaneously. It's always in the back of my mind that there is something that I was supposed to check on google. Now, how can I retain what I'm reading if I can't focus on one thing? I think I can, but time will only tell. And, I'm on the tail end of technology, I'm just grasping it where young students are bombarded and surrounded by it all the time.
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