Well , the audio didn't work and it all looks a lot more complicated than I first thought. Another day perhaps!
I have three themes for today and part of an article by Russell Brown (noted media and IT commentator).
1. Famous last words - contained in the sound bite and meant to reflect that the way we think about something now may have no relevance in the future. This could favour the acceptance of the current technologies or could be a warning sign against false prophets.
2. Blind acceptance - a reminder to always critically evaluate any information that you are given. Just because it's new, flashy, looks promising -doesn't mean that it's wonderful. There are some guides available to critically evaluate.
3. Groupthink - remember the Bay of Pigs? , remember the Challenger Space Shuttle fiasco?, remember George Bush's invasion of Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction? All Group Think where powerful individuals with an unquestioning audience made decisions which caused massive death's and injury.
From Russell Browns 'Hard News" http://publicaddress.net/default,4576.sm
Real Media | Oct 25, 2007 10:09
I spoke to a group of Media teachers at a development day at Unitech yesterday, and the subsequent conversation was quite interesting. These courses have flexible curricula (actually, according to Geoff Lealand no curricula), but they all teach secondary students basic screen production skills.
Yet none of them were teaching what ought to be a core skill in handling video these days: the optimum way of encoding clips to play on YouTube and similar services. In many cases that's because YouTube is dangerous ground for schools. Some of them just filter it at the gate.
It's the same with other social media; especially Bebo. And yet, when I had a wander through surrounding pages after Rory English's Bebo comments became a story, it struck me that this was a form of media that would be really useful to get kids to discuss. I got the impression that a lot of these kids were behaving as if they were in a private bubble, whereas they were actually on the public internet.
Same with blogs. Our kids start making PowerPoint presentations at intermediate level. But no one talks to them about a medium they're much more likely to actually use. It doesn't take a lot of skill to pimp your MySpace, but wouldn't working with WordPress be useful for Media students?
Even Wikipedia seems problematic. It's much easier to declare it unreliable than to impart some basic skills in assessing the merit of an article -- as the cornerstone of the vital modern ability to scrutinise information online -- and then how and when to edit. I think that's much more useful than faffing about with Second Life (yes, I probably do have a bias against Second Life).
As a result, I've promised to talk to some scholarship students about these things before the end of the school year. I'd also be interested to hear from teachers -- in the comments here, if possible -- about how they're approaching these issues.
3 comments:
Hi Graeme
If a new technology "looks promising" then isn't it worth a look? I don't see playing in Second Life as 'faffing' but evaluating it's usefulness for my context. Finding out what the thing is about and then making my mind up. Some of the tools are frustrating to use at first but once beyond the 'newbie' stage it can become clearer whether they will be of any use. Technology is a resource, just like text books or guest speakers - the teacher chooses the most appropriate for the given class, students, subject, topic, circumstance. That's how I see it anyway. As a secondary teacher I don't look at these tools as being the entire course.
Groupthink? Er? Not sure what you're getting at here.
Yvonne
Hi Yvonne, Thanks for your comments. I actually didn't say "faffing about with Second Life" - that was Russell Brown a NZ commentator on Media who has a regular column in the Listener and National Radio as well as maintaning a multiBlog called Hard News.
I have had a look at Second Life and I see no redeeming features it currently has that I could use as technology for teaching although Leigh tells me that there are some applications that allow disabled people to move about or fly which could be an activity in the Occupational Therapy jargon.
This is my frustration with a lot of the tools we have been exposed to that they have the POTENTIAL to be useful but are currently not above the level of public television (i.e. an attention span of a 9 year old)
Groupthink is a term used to describe the type of thinking that happens when a strong charasmatic leader and several group members who unquestionably follow him/her, make decisions which are historically shown to be disastraously wrong despite the lone voices of some critics who are ignored or scorned. Examples are George Bush's war in Iraq, the Bay of Pigs, the Challneger Space Shuttle.
Hope that helps.
Hi again Graeme
Thanks for the definition (I do know what groupthink is :) - I thought you might explain a bit more on why you mentioned it in your post!). Are you relating the whole Web 2.0 issue to groupthink or just our course??
Cheers
Yvonne
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