moderated by Paul DiPerna

THREAD #6

Paul DiPerna:

Do you think the Internet should be taught as a "subject" for children, ages 5 to 18, in elementary and secondary schools? Say, in the same ways we approach teaching math, reading, history, science, language arts, and other subjects?

Or should the Internet be embedded in the "process" of learning, rather than as a formal "content" area?

It seems to me that we may be exposing children and teens to new social technologies without really addressing the long-term effects of those technologies, either at the individual level or societal level..

Are we adequately addressing the Internet's personal and social effects for children and teenagers?

Paul Lawton:

Paul K. Lawton

This question immediately brings to mind the "To Catch a Predator" series (and now the companion book - "Enemies in Your Home" or whatever it is called...), which is maintaining the mythology of the Internet as being "dangerous," with "predators" lurking, pornography everywhere... on and on like this.

It isn't anything new.

I did a lecture recently where I presented research tracing the "moral panic" of new technologies all the way back to the telegraph (the fear being that women might succumb to the seduction of non-face to face communication, which seems mind boggling to us). This is not to deny that "bad" things have come out of being online; I just find it troubling that the Internet's promise as an educational tool is being reigned in for some misguided attempts to "save our children."

To answer the question directly; we have to consider both options -- both in terms of using ICT as a tool, but also as a substantive subject.

That is to say that as a tool for learning, ICT is unparalleled. I have often remarked how dramatically my University experience changed once research articles and books started showing up online. I can't even remember the last time I stepped inside the campus library -- I just haven't needed to for the work I have been doing.

The other half of the equation is all the new social formations and conversations that are happening in blogs, online communities, chat rooms etc. etc. etc. I can't imagine why, as a field, Sociology has been so slow at jumping at the ICT bandwagon -- there are just so many socially interesting things happening at such a rapid pace.

How this is shaping lives needs to be addressed, absolutely. I just think it needs to happen in a more even handed way. I contend that Folksonomies like Wikipedia are having a more direct impact than sexual predators and online red light districts.

Miia Akkinen:

Miia Akkinen

The school system here in Finalnd is a bit different. The children start their school at the age of seven. Before it, they have a pre-school for 1 year, and naturally before it they learn things at the daycare. I have two children (6 years and 5 years), and the older one uses the Internet almost daily for games and communicating with friends and relatives. The smaller one is satisfied when she sees nice pictures on the Internet, the animal parade of Teletubbies is number one at the moment.

I think that children today are so used to the Internet that they don't think it as any separate issue. In my opinion, the Internet should rather be embedded in learning rather than handled as a formal content area. It would be good if Internet is discussed in many subjects. When studying history you could look also the history of the communication, history of information highway. And when studying your environment, you could for example discuss also the e-environment. As a mother of two little daughters I am naturally worried about all the dangers my children are opposed on the Internet when they get older. What if they get into troubles when communicating with strangers on the Internet? What if they tell too much about themselves on the Internet and get themselves in a danger? Beside the school, also the parents have responsibilities in this thing.

Sarita Yardi:

Sarita Yardi

I entirely agree with Paul's claim that Wikipedia and similar online environments are are more likely to influencing kids in profound ways, both in school and out of school! I also enjoyed reading Miia's response, although I generally disagree that the Internet should only be embedded learning but not added as a formal content area...

I think the future of a core K-12 agenda should be in equipping kids with skills in "reading, writing, and computing" where computing involves a wide array of skills in both online as well as desktop application-oriented computing environments. I definitely agree that using the Internet as an embedded tool for learning is a fundamental part of this curriculum, especially given that students are all doing that anyway (eg searching Google when writing a research paper), but I think there are whole host of topics that students can start learning at an early age: search, information retrieval, how to assess authority, privacy, setting preferences, selecting the right tool for the right uses, cheating versus collaboration issues, in addition to basic skills like typing, creating effective PowerPoint presentations, or writing a research paper.

Of course, this opinion reflects my own research bias... I am teaching an Introduction to HCI course to teenagers this summer with two goals in particular: first, to teach them core design, user interface, and user studies principles, scaled to an appropriate difficulty level for teenagers; and second, to hook them into computing as an interesting and exciting field such that they might want to study it in college or be excited to go land the next job at Google.

Of course, I am using the word computing here rather than Internet, which leads to a different discussion that is actively being debated among Computer Science Education researchers. What is the difference between Computing, the Internet, Computer Science, Information Literacy, etc and which are important for kids to know about? I'm not sure I can answer that question!

Fred Stutzman:

Fred Stutzman

First, a few things.

This is a very broad question. The age group 5-18 (primary and secondary school) is tremendously vast. Further, the maturity intervals are so small at that age range, it is very hard to compare a 7 year old to a 9 year old.

Second, I don't think we can dichotomize an approach to something as vast as the internet. The internet is going to be embedded in the future of learning, and there will be highly contextual shifts between demographics in terms of learning engagement. For example, rural students may be more likely to take an AP Latin course over the internet than urban students.

Essentially, there are a number of pivot points where learning needs will require us to learn technological skills, and vice versa.

Of course, the internet is a vessel. It enables us to do many things. When we learn a programming language to design a website, those skills are not inherently internet skills. The same is true when a video production is uploaded. These creations are contextualized within the medium, but they are not inherent of the medium.

So this brings us to an interesting question. Do you teach children first to become good, critical learners, and hope that these skills will transfer to the internet? If you teach a child to be a great photographer, will it look as good on the internet as in print or a gallery? Fundamentally, the medium requires us to re-evaluate the techniques of learning and production and requires us to apply them in context.

So perhaps it is the skills required for this recontextualization that are most valuable. Certainly there are technical and non-technical aspects of this skillset, but we can certainly be taught best-practices for communicating within a medium.

At some level, I believe that cultural and social norms will lead young people to these skills. Social networking sites provide interesting places for study - why is it that a significant portion of young people can update a myspace layout, maintain a profile, etc? They do so by watching their peers and appropriating their behavior. Of course, relying on society to "work out" the skills of young people will lead to systematic failures, especially in the context of learning. It is one thing to expect young people to care about their Myspace pages, and another thing to imagine them collaboratively managing a wiki or something like that.

To prevent these systematic failures, we must embed the core skills that are transferable into curricula. Basic technology skills, critical thinking, etc- of these things get us up to speed to participate in the discussion, but they will only take us so far. Social learning processes will take us in some directions, drilling and required study (such as in my statistics classes, which prove that non-technical people can learn a command line interface) can accomplish other things. Ultimately, we have to make our mind up on what are the best ways to allot time to this "above and beyond" learning.

And the way to do that is by having a good grasp on what is successful for students. If a Myspace-type environment provides a good learning experience, then perhaps it is useful to explore this. We mustn't let our entrenched ideas about what is right and wrong dictate our approaches going forward.

[later, in a follow-up...]

One time I was giving a talk and I indirectly referred to the fact that most instructors are not keeping pace with the digital learners they are teaching. The crowd hissed at me - there is mass delusion.

This weekend I actually attended a very interesting conference (HASTAC) where folks from many of the major grant making institutions were talking about the future of digital learning (Connie Yowell from MacArthur, for example).

These funders get it, and I found that very inspiring. Perhaps if we "follow the money" we'll get somewhere.

Paul DiPerna:

Thanks.. Very insightful points by all of you.


Click here for the next thread.