Monday, July 7, 2008

Growing Up Online

I caught an episode of PBS's Frontline the other night. The title was "Growing Up Online". It had a very interesting section on "A Revolution in Classroom and Social Life" that discusses how kids are growing up immersed in technology, how they all have Facebook accounts, and how teachers in high-schools are dealing with tech-savvy kids and incorporating technology into their lessons to enhance the materials and keep students' attention.

You can watch the episode (or parts) online at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

1 comment:

Carleen Shaffer said...

I watched the segment "Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life". There were no surprises and it's what I try to emphasize in the Technology for Adult Educators class that I teach for the Masters ACE program - that is, the students for the most part are far ahead of the teachers where technology is concerned. This focused upon high school - but it's true at the college level as well (of course since they already used it in high school). One young man said "I never read books" because he said he "doesn't have time". He uses a website called SparkNotes. They highlighted 2 teachers - one who is embracing the technology and using it in the classroom - the other who has been in the classroom for 3 decades and is feeling left behind.

The segment also included the social networking mania and I was pleased to at least hear one student say "I thought, oh no, what if my college is looking at this". I hope at least some students understand the ramifications. The final person interviewed (an author) noted that "discretion and privacy are in the past" with this generation...