Teaching with Technology

Considering our readings to date in Hanging Out… (Ito, et al.) and Confronting the Challenges… (Jenkins) what is most striking to me is the confluence of the use of digital media to realize “old” forms of social interactions (i.e., predating digital tools) with digital media facilitating unprecedented modes of interaction that, once in place, establish new baselines (or ecologies) for human experience. As a colleague in our learning community put it, “the internet has a face”, and our experiences with digital technologies, described in Ito’s study of youth and summarized by Jenkins, are at their essence manifestations of human experience. Earlier this week I reflected on other interfaces between technology and the human spirit.

In how many different ways can humans interact utilizing digital media? Ito describes how youthful behaviors ranging from gauging social status to romantic relationships to arguments among siblings play out utilizing the expanded opportunities for communication afforded by digital media. Whereas the behaviors are themselves familiar enough – teen romance and cliques predate digital media – ubiquitous digital media give rise to new forms of these familiar experiences. For example, the conveyance of fond thoughts toward a romantic partner, at one time perhaps accomplished via handwritten notes, is now achieved via thrice daily text messages. What it seems to me we intuitively recognize and describe as “cool” is the fact that such capabilities made possible by our new digital tools serve to focus and intensify our human experiences.

What remains unclear to me from our readings is the extent to which the capabilities of digital tools have or have not been harnessed to effectively facilitate classroom instruction. While Jenkins categorizes and describes the knowledge, skills and abilities students will need to cultivate to succeed in a world of digitally-based careers, and describes various approaches to utilizing digital media in the development of those skills, Ito seems to describe a gulf between the ubiquitous, open and participatory digital worlds inhabited by teens and the relatively staid, closed and authoritarian models of traditional classroom and parenting models. From Ito’s descriptions of youth I get the sense that most of the interactive modalities emphasized by Jenkins are being learned outside of and despite the classroom instruction those youth experience. The youth in Ito’s study seem to me to demonstrate a fairly sophisticated understanding of their various digital realms, for example, how to avoid strangers on the internet, or accepting of potential risks that many parents would find unacceptable (e.g., publicly posting photographs over parental objections). Here, too, however, there is not much new about youth engaging in risky behavior or regarding parents as being overly cautious.

The immediacy and fast pace of communication and expression, wealth of accessible information, and expanded opportunities for collaboration across traditional divides afforded by digital media is the only world today’s youth have ever known. Digital media are very new and our educational institutions tend to change gradually. As Jenkins notes, our schools are designed to train farmers in a world of hunters. The conclusion I take from Ito is that youth will learn to hunt one way or another, and one place or another.