Teens, Tweens and

TechnologyTransformation or tough times ahead

Chris Parker

your students think differentlyabout information and communication

than you do!

they just do!

digital nativesor

digital immigrants

A digital native is a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were

born, and hence has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet,

mobile phones and MP3s etc.

A digital immigrant is a person who has been born before the Internet and other digital

technologies existed. They are said to have a "thick accent" when operating in the digital world in distinctly pre-digital ways, when, for instance, they might "dial" someone on the telephone to ask if his e-mail was received.

how well have youassimilated?

they live in a world permeated by...

4 MP camera 20x zoom

internet

email

video camera

bluetooth/wireless

MP3 player

FM radio

multimedia

storage (16Gb)

pocket sized

“As early as the 1960’s, it was apparent that children were spending more time watching television than they were in school. And while, with the advent of other screen based media, children’s

television viewing has slightly declined in recent years, the overall picture is clear: children spend more time with media of various kinds than they do on any other

activity apart from sleeping.” (Buckingham, 2007)

web 2.0characterised by:

• an architecture of participation

• creating and sharing not consuming static information

• community, transparency, decentralising of authority

• editorial process shared by the community of users

web 2.0early embryonic examples:- internet banking, online shopping, forum sites, web auctions

we now need to talk about:- wikis - blogs - phlogs- vlogs- podcasts and feeds - social networking sites - learning management systems

instant gratification

microwavesfast food

tenuous employmentdrive through

internet

This generation expects everything to be available instantly, not because they have no patience or short attention spans, it’s the way

their world is

monster

eg. book-a-minute.com

http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute

Lord of the Flies William Golding

(Some BOYS crash on an ISLAND.)RalphWe need a fire. (They make a fire. It goes out.)

RalphWe need a fire. (They make a fire. It goes out.)

RalphWe need a fire.

JackForget the fire. Let's kill each other.

Other BoysYeah! (They do.)

THE END

eg. 50wordreview.comreview of “We Were Soldiers”

“They were soldiers.”

What are our students like?:

digital nativestechnologically savvyInformation bloated

media marinatedtime poor

instant gratification driven

your students think differentlyabout information and communication

than you do!

digital education

revolutionThere is a growing excitement in the vast possibilities of the digital age for changing how we learn and teach

A school bus in Japan

“We are, as I have often reflected, facing the death of Education, but

are very much at the dawn of Learning. 21st Century Learning looks pretty exciting and today's learners,

with today's pocketable personal connected ICT, are showing us very, very clearly just how good learning

might be. We ignore that at our peril.”

Prof Stephen Heppell

http://workshop.heppell.mobi/2010/01/new-decade-in-learning.html

replacing the 3 R’sThe classic 3R's:

Reading | wRiting | aRithmetic

The modern 3X's eXploration|eXpression|eXchange

SOURCE: Idit Harel - A new necessity for the young clickerati

Imagine a dial going from 0-10. Imagine that this is an index of how much education will likely change in the

next 10 years. Be prepared to justify your “speed”.

activity

technology: friend or foe

transformationor

tough times ahead

technology and education have had a checkered past…

“Students today depend on paper too much. They don’t know how to write on a

slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate

properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?”

Principal’s Association 1815

Students today depend too much upon ink. They don’t know how to use a pen knife to

sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil.

National association of Teachers 1907

Ballpoint pens will be the ruin of education in our country. Students use these devices and

then throw them away. The American values of thrift and frugality are being

discarded. Business and banks will never allow such expensive luxuries.

Federation of Teachers 1950

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

transformationor

tough times ahead

biblical view

creation | distortion | redemption | new-creation

good creational essence remains

technology is not neutral

• perceived need is driven by a worldview

• birthed out of a cultural story

• existence will re-shape culture

To a man with a hammer, everything

looks like a nail.

“In the year 1500, fifty years after the printing press was invented, we did

not have old Europe plus the printing press. We had a different Europe.

After television, the United States was not America plus television; television

gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to

every school, to every church, to every industry.”

(Postman, 1993)

technology: friend or foe

hidden army of

subtle seduction

• informationism

• narcissism

• virtualism

• utopianism

informationism

“The telegraph may have made the country into “one neighbourhood”, but

it was a peculiar one, populated by strangers who knew nothing but the

most superficial facts about each other.

(Postman, 1986)

The INTERNET may have made the WORLD into “one neighbourhood”, but it is a peculiar one, populated by strangers who know nothing but the

most superficial facts about each other.

“Idolatry is when we take a good thing and make it an

ultimate thing”Tim Keller

“We are succumbing to informationism: a

non-discerning, vacuous faith in the

collection and dissemination of

information as a route to social progress and personal happiness.”

informationismis | ought

observation | intimacy

measurement | meaning

lost our abilityvaluable | valueless

knowledge aboutrather than

knowledge of

“Information technologies foster second hand knowledge about rather than more

intimate knowledge of…

As the pool of information grows, our actual knowing declines…

...reading online about the needs of the world, for instance, is never the same as

personally knowing people in need.”

(Schultz, 2004)

accessmore important knowing | understanding

quantity over quality

the device paradigm

“The replacement of wonder with dazzle and of

communicationwith

decontextualisedinformation.”

(Borgmann, 1984)

Students often lack personal

commitment to what they are

learning

information has been

trivialised

epistemology

2005 American Dialect Society Word-of-the-Year…

Professor Michael Adams, who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means

"truthy, not facty.“

Truthiness refers to the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or

facts known to be true.

“truthiness”

“...the weight assigned to any form of truth telling is a function of the influence of media

of communication... As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to

televising, [to the Internet] its ideas of truth move with it.”

(Postman, 1986)

“The medium is the message.”(McLuhan, 1964)

technologyis not neutral

nacissism

1993

“Will the computer raise egocentrism to the status of a

virtue?”

“I wrote a paragraph of text and there it was … You write

all these pages for school and no one ever sees it, and you write for Wikipedia and

the whole world sees it, instantly.”

Secondary school student

popular media

“They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons

who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry – for God’s

sake their dirty photos! – online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They

talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention – yet they have

zero attention span....”

(Nussbaum, 2007)

research

San Diego University (Hoover, 2007)

16,000 students

1982 – 2006

Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)

Research results (cont)

“(The researchers) define narcissism as excessive vanity and sense of

entitlement…people who exhibit such qualities tend to lack empathy for others,

behave aggressive when insulted, and ignore the needs of those around them. Everyone is attractive or getting surgery to become so; competition and individual pursuits trump

collective action; relationships are superficial and transient; kids are treated permissively at home and fed with self-inflating messages at school…we have to stop telling kids they are

special all the time.”

Research results

30% more showed “elevated narcissism”

“…gadgets and online social networking sites have stoked the self loving tendencies of modern students.”

“2006 level of narcissism was equal to that of movie stars and web-cebs like Paris Hilton”

‘cause I’m special

1993

“Will the computer raise egocentrism to the status of a

virtue?”

virtualism

the device paradigmAlbert Borgmann

”An increasing disengagement from life as fabrics of intimacy are being lost. There is a move out of reality into the bluff and

illusion of virtual reality.”

“We become informational voyeurs of life rather than

responsible participants in the knowing of our own cultures and

communities.

‘Surfing’ is an apt word for our condition because it connotes living on the surface of reality.”

(Schultz, 2004)

“Why not flee the few of the living room for the many of the screen, where all relationships

are flattened into one user-friendly mosaic, a human

collage that’s endlessly clickable and never demands our full

attention?

(Powers, 2010)

“...people are removed

from the thick world of

context.”(Borgmann, 2003)

Mark Sayers, 2010The Vertical Self: How Biblical faith can help us to discover who we are in an age of self obsession

medium is the message

oral | text | image

70% boys have seen pornography by 12 yrs

(Tankard Reist, 2007)

100% boys have seen pornography by 15 yrs

“...people are removed

from the thick world of

context.”(Borgmann, 2003)

utopianism

“For some people, digital technology isn’t just a new kind of tool, it’s a

revolutionary creed to believe in and live for, a movement that’s

transforming and perfecting life on earth. The Answer.

...we really believe that Nirvana is just an upgrade away.”

(Powers, 2010)

“It is a morally bankrupt faith in our own ability to engineer

the Promised Land.”

(Schultz, 2004)

“All our inventions are but improved means

to an unimproved end.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

conclusiondigital childreneducation is being shapedtechnology not neutral

so what, for Christian educators?

embrace the good creational essence of technologyengagementdifferentiationless knowledge more learningcreativitycollaboration

have critical awareness of the

worldview assumptions that are shaping (and being shaped by)

technology

balance

•Recognise and rejoice

•Discern and resist

•Confront and renew

task of Christian educationteach our students…

Chris Parkercparker@nice.edu.au

www.nice.edu.au