The person I interviewed for this podcast is a teacher at the building I work at. She is currently taking grad classes in ESL and recently had to use Web 2.0 as part of her classwork. I chose her because she was the colleague who had most recently used Web 2.0 in both collegiate and professional settings.

The interview process was fairly simple and the application I used on my phone to do the recording was free and easy to use. This posting is late, so obviously I would give myself more time to plan questions out next time. I mostly used the provided questions but added a few of my own as we went through the interview.

It is interesting that my interviewee has used Web 2.0 not only in a collegiate setting but also in her own classroom. She discussed using a program called PawToons in her classroom. She said that students were more engaged with the content and loved the presentation. She told me that she offered to let students use PawToons for their animal presentations and they were extremely excited about the prospect of using the program themselves. I think that this program would be great if it were incorporated into the art history portion of my profession to help with student engagement. She also described the use of Facebook by a fellow teacher to keep parents in the loop about her classroom and work. I think this is something else that I could use in my own professional context because I could upload student artwork to share with parents. That paired with Artsonia could be a great fundraising opportunity!

There are more questions than answers when it comes to media literacy and its impact on education. In the journal by David Buckingham titled, “Media education goes digital: an introduction” I found many ideas that I found to be new and interesting in terms of how technology can be incorporated in the classroom. Buckingham reviewed some points that created what he called the “new digital divide” and the “old digital divide”. Basically, what divides our students in terms of their knowledge about digital media and its use in their lives. The “old digital divide” refers to the differences students have in experience with technology based on their socioeconomic status’. The “new digital divide” relates to the vast differences between each individual student and their use and understanding of technology. These ‘new’ differences are fueled primarily by personal interest and social media, as no two individuals will use technology the same way and/or have exactly the same interests. He uses this as one of many arguments for why technology and digital media education are important to its effective use in future classrooms. In years past, your access to technology was limited to the socioeconomic status of your family and your community, but now that the thrill of all this new technology has worn off to some degree, most people have ‘access’ to technology. The new inequity is how much experience and education each individual has with technology. This, he argues, poses a huge problem in implementation. As a teacher, I would 100% agree with this. I have seen so many students who seem technologically proficient enough to use a computer for schoolwork, fail to figure out how to log in, fail to be able to do research, and fail to be able to use, what I consider in an academic setting to be, standard software. I have also seen students who play on their cell phones all day, but don’t know how to talk on a cell phone without the speakerphone on. Contradictory and frightening indeed.

In the article by Danah Boyd titled, “Did Media Literacy Backfire?” and the article by Carole Cadwalladr titled “Google is not ‘just’ a platform…” there is further discussion about the importance of media literacy and ways that it appears to have failed some in our society. Boyd focuses the discussion more on sources that are used for information and an idea I will refer to as, “the experience vs. expertise dilemma”. It is obvious to anyone who has gone through the public education system in the last 20 or so years that you need to use credible sources for any type of research you do. What is called into question is the fact that not everyone sees the same sources as being credible. For example, some might say that Wikipedia is credible, while others do not. A number of examples are outlined in this article that backs up the points made by the journal written by David Buckingham: digital media education is the crux of future classrooms in terms of implementing digital media. Another one of Boyd’s main points is that people often use their own research and self-entitled ‘expertise’ to make decisions that should be left to professionals with experience. Hence, the experience vs. expertise dilemma. The push for years has been for individuals to do their own research and to question anything that their gut tells them isn’t quite right. Unfortunately, that trend has resulted in some fairly significant groups of conspiracy theorists. Additionally, Cadwalladr points out that some sources that are supposed to be neutral, are actually not. Google is put on the stake here and demonized for its supposed underlying right-wing agenda.

It is clear through the iterations of these three authors, as well as my own experiences with students and technology in the classroom, that much more thought and energy must be put into digital media education in all schools across the nation, and the world. Even though there are some things I’m sure all educators will agree need to be taught in such a curriculum, as Boyd phrased it: “No simple Band-Aid will work.”

As someone who grew up around technology, I feel that the ideas shared in this week’s reading and viewing materials are definitely heading down the right path for integrating learning and technology. The idea that individuals learn best when they are allowed to incorporate their passion and interests, is fascinating. I think innately, I already knew this to be true, but would never have been able to articulate it without hearing someone else describe it as they did in “Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design”, and the videos by James Gee and Henry Jenkins. Obviously, the ideas in these resources are geared more towards our learners who are in middle school and beyond, as one would need a solid elementary education in order to know what to research and how to look for it. I think that Henry Jenkins said it best in his video when he said that we can’t have ‘feral children of the internet’ who are allowed to learn everything on their own. Most children would, as he put it, be left behind. I also think this reinforces the ideas that we have all shared in the past few weeks that, technology, while a valuable resource, is just that – a resource. It will not and can not replace a primary level education.

As an extension of these ideas, James Gee related the way learning occurs in video games to the idea of connected learning. As an avid gamer, I also found this fascinating! I had never thought about the fact that a video game teaches you how to solve problems and win, and that it has to be good at it in order for the company that produced it to be successful. I can parallel this idea to what happens in my classroom since my lessons are very production-based. Students are given a set of tools and/or information pertaining to a project that I would like them to complete. Then, their goal is to find a way to solve the ‘problem’ (project) while often incorporating their own ideas.

Finally, I was happy to see in “Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design”, that the authors talked about equality in education and the impacts that technology, or a lack thereof, impact our more sensitive populations. They referred to these populations as ‘non-dominant youth’, but in essence, they encompass many of the students in our urban and rural populations. Students who are growing up in poverty and/or who are from minority groups. These students often face inequalities right down to a lack of parental interaction and influence. I thought it was interesting that this publication discussed how increased technology use in more ‘dominant’ or privileged schools, widens the success gap between dominant and non-dominant youths. It also stated that in order for reform to happen, questions need to be asked about issues of equality. Many of my students have phones, but just as many don’t have a strong support system at home that would promote growth and success in a connected learning environment. In the particular school, I teach in, our technology resources are severely limited, especially when compared to our nearby suburban counterparts. Our students are definitely not benefiting from connected learning and would need much more support for this type of learning theory to work for them.

All in all, I think that the ideas discussed in the two publications and in the videos were interesting and show opportunities for positive change in education. However, I agree that we need to make sure we are addressing quality in our more sensitive schools to make sure that implementing these ideas wouldn’t be a flop.