Teaching for the Future
Although our world is moving at a faster and faster pace, our schools have not done enough to reflect this change. In fact, the standard teaching method used in most classrooms throughout the country is older than most of the teachers who teach it. We need to recreate our classrooms because "students communicate more, construct original content more, and more often collaborate virtually with other people, than do their teachers. Those teachers who pretend to stand on higher ground appear, to many of their students, to be standing on quicksand.”(Warlick para.4) Through Teaching for the Future, I am trying to create curriculum that is so adaptable that it can be applied to the information we do not know and media we have not yet seen. Integrating new media into the classroom is not about speed or scalability, but about creating democracy and transparency in the classroom.
In most classrooms students are expected to gather information and then prove to the instructor that they understand it by demonstrating what they have learned. In these classrooms students are basically to proving that they read the material and paid attention in class. Students are only learning from the surface, and by doing so they are not making any deeper personal connection to their curricula. When students fail to make connections to what they are learning they will only retain what they learned until they are tested on something else. This is why Critical Pedagogy - the practice of teaching students to be critical thinkers – is so important. When students learn to think critically they can then approach learning and information critically. In other words, these critical learners are able to actively engage with what they are learning and better understand the world around them. Ultimately the goal of Critical Pedagogy is not only to teach students to dig beyond the surface, but to also create a classroom where students are active participants in their own learning.
In today’s society it is particularly important to teach students to be critical learners because the media is becoming an ever larger part of a child's education. Our students are accumulating information from radio, television, magazines, and the Internet like never before. As a result, they are digesting information like never before, but we are not utilizing their thirst for information and stimuli. Now more than ever we as educators are struggling to compete with marketers and advertisers for the attention of our students. In fact, “by the time kids are age 12 they have the ability to recognize 200 brand logos by sight.” (Borowski) Our students are being exposed huge amounts of complex and often misleading information from mass media and we need to give them the tools to wade though it and distinguish reality from spin.
In the 21st Century, media literacy will be as important to our students as traditional literacy. Teaching our students reading and comprehension is no longer enough to stay ahead in our modern world; we need to teach our students consider the whole meaning of the messages that they are surrounded by each day. The goal of media literacy is to teach students the skills they need to operate in a contemporary society as an informed citizen. More specifically, it is crucial that we teach students to understand how the media is used to communicate and how the media influences our society. By teaching media literacy in our schools we are teaching students to think critically in and outside of the classroom. In addition by learning how to separate fact from opinion, students will also find that all forms of communication contain some sort of bias because they reflect the views the author, editors, financers, and distributors. By teaching students to think critically about the messages they receive we are teaching them to think for themselves, and applying Critical Pedagogy in our curricula.
In my project I chose to focus on media literacy and technology literacy because the way we communicate with each other is moving away from old media (TV, radio, and print media) and moving toward new media. The term new media refers to the growing channels of communication available on the World Wide Web. The vast majority of the Internet is occupied by webpages that are more like the old media then the new media because they are by a select few who are passing on information to a larger audience. The new media that our students are exposed to is made up of blogs, social networking services, podcasts, and wikis. These technologies are different from standard webpages are because they are rewriteable and allow the readers to change, communicate and comment on the new media.
The growth of the new media can be attributed more to its democratic nature than the ease of editing. Before the Internet, the barriers to get into journalism were very high. Now anyone with a computer and an internet connection has the tools to become part of the media and “the people formerly called the audience are now participants.”(Gilmor p. 30) A great example of the democratic nature of the new media is Wikipedia, where the online community of “wikipedians” is able to edit articles in Wikipedia directly through any web browser. While a standard encyclopedia is compiled by a select group of experts, Wikipedia is compiled by anyone who signs up for a free account and adheres to the posting guidelines. However because Wikipedia is constantly changing, it makes it impossible to cite it as an academic source. Moreover some teachers consider Wikipedia less credible than a standard encyclopedia like Britannica. Interestingly, these same characteristics that make Wikipedia a less credible academic source also make it thriving community where the audience become the participants. It is the democratic nature of new media that makes it well suited for use in the classroom and alongside our curriculum, but before teachers can utilize these new learning tools they need to learn more about them.
Teaching for the Future is a podcast that I created about teaching media and new media literacy in the classroom. A podcast is rich audio or video content that can be delivered directly to my audience whenever I create a new episode and upload the file to my website. My podcast is available through the web and can be accessed on my website, through iTunes or any feed reader. In many ways a podcast is a lot like a radio or television broadcast because it is a way of communicating through audio and video. Podcasting differs from the old media because the barrier of entry is much lower than TV or radio so anyone can produce one. All of the tools for creating a podcast come equipped with most computers or are already free and on the Internet.
On the podcast I discuss technology and media and in order to allow teachers to better understand how these technologies affect the classroom and the lives of their students. Each episode discusses a different form of media (such as textbooks, social-networking websites, and blogging) and how we as educators need to start thinking about these technologies. There were many practical advantages to choosing the medium of a podcast for my project, including allowing me to reach a large audience and making my project free and accessible to anyone online. Also, I hope that in introducing teachers to technology by the act of producing a podcast specifically for them I can help them to be more engaged issues and expose them to a new technology in the process. The overall message of the podcast is that integrating this new media into our classroom will allow teachers to harness skills our students have developed on their own and "use students’ curiosity and intrinsic need to communicate to inspire interest in history, science, literature, and health."(Warlick, Flat Classroom Fuel – Heritage, para. 5). In other words, through understanding and integrating technology into the curriculum, teachers are using Critical Pedagogy.
One episode of my podcast discussed classroom blogging and how blogging can affect the classroom. I interviewed video blogger Bre Pettis who runs the Room132 blog from his classroom in Seattle, WA. Bre created Room132 as way of getting his students more interested in their writing. The blog was a way of having students improve their writing by holding themselves more accountable by “creating a wider and more authentic audience.”(Pettis) Blogging can also create new teaching opportunities for our students. It can be hard to set up a session to have students teach a lesson to others outside of the class. Through using blogs students can not only “teach back what they know to a potentially large audience, it's not a contrived audience, because the people who learn from it are motivated to do so." (Richardson, Teaching Students… para. 3) Instead of teaching to a captive audience in a classroom, students can teach anyone who opts in by reading the blog. Blogs allow students learn to think critically as teachers when they must decide what information to include or leave out of their lessons.
Another topic that I intend to cover in a future episode is wikis. A wiki is a webpage that can be edited by large groups of people directly through a web browser. Wiki is a Hawaiian word that means “fast”, so essentially Wikipedia is a “fast” encyclopedia comprised of article written into wikis. Instead of having students only able to work together when their schedules allow students can edit documents right on the web, which means that generally it is easier for students to work on group projects by allowing a central location for group documents. Also, through using a wiki students can see first hand how different pieces of information can interact with each other. Moreover, because students are aware that anyone with access to the wiki can alter the information on it, this reinforces the concept of thinking critically about the source of information and not just taking it as fact.
Ideally we want to use these new media tools to create what Dr Lawrence Lessig calls a read-write culture. We need to build a classroom culture in which students can “participate in the creation and the re-creation of the culture around them.”(Lessig) Many of our schools are preparing student for a read-only culture where the content they are exposed to is created by only a select few. By creating a read-write culture in our schools we are able to create a more transparent classroom, allowing students and teachers to actively participate in their education and the flow of information. Also, by teaching educators about technology and how to use it in the classroom, I hope to encourage them to teach their students to think critically through using technology. Critical Pedagogy can take many forms, and I think that integrating technology to reach this goal can be very effective because students are already interested in learning how to communicate more using new technology. Moreover, because students’ lives already revolve around many of these new media, the lessons that students learn in the classroom about thinking critically can be transferred seamlessly into their life outside of school as well.
Of course, there are legitimate concerns that some may have about bringing internet technology into the classroom. For example, many teachers and parents worry that allowing our students to access to new media will make young people targets for cyber bullying or sexual predators. Some schools choose to use software that makes the content only accessible from school but some feel that this is “like putting them on a track with[out] the locomotive.”(Gamerman) As a way of balancing access and safety, for example, Bre Pettis uses a fully accessible web client, but does not permit students to use real names or show pictures as an extra safety measure. Moreover, I feel building that new media content with students offers a great opportunity to discuss Internet safety and web ethics. These are all technologies that students are already using or will be using in the near future. We need to teach students how to be safe online and that practice needs to start in the classroom. If we keep students cloistered on the internet they may not know how to handle someone saying something inappropriate to them on the web.
In the future I plan to implement many of these new media technology in my own classroom practice. As an art teacher I will use blogging as a way for students to continue reflecting on their own art even when they leave the classroom. Students can post images of their artwork and create artists statements or as a place to talk about their own processes for creating their art. Blogging allows students to carry the conversation from the classroom to anyone who visits the blog on the World Wide Web. This would also allow anyone to connect to the blog and comment on the artwork or ask the students about their pieces. I expect their to be a lot of interesting conversations, even though for obvious reasons I will be monitoring the comments for anything in appropriate or defamatory. By storing all of the images and text content I will also be able to make each student a portfolio. Eventually students would be able to bring their portfolio home or if the plan to further their education use them as documentation of their art work. I do expect to come across many unforeseen difficulties but I think it is important to implement this technology. I think blogging is a new and important way for students to expand their audience, engage in meaningful discussion, and be recognized for their hard work.
Through Teaching for the Future I learned new ways to incorporate many different tools into the classroom. I also learned just how important critical pedagogy is in preparing students to be active participants in the world around them. My career goal is to teach high school art, so I believe that I will be able to apply Critical Pedagogy in a way that will turn my students into critical learners. Although at times going against the grain of traditional ways of learning can be difficult than maintaining the status quo, we need to better prepare our students for the world as it is now and how it will be around the corner. Critical Pedagogy must be built into all curriculum to teach our students for this new world. I look forward to having more opportunities in the future to apply this philosophy to my fellow teachers and my students. I hope to inspire others to do the same though Teaching for the Future, which I plan to continue producing even after the semester has ended.
Bibliography
Gamerman, Ellen. (January 21, 2006) Legalized 'Cheating'. The Wall Street Journal,
Gilmor, Dan. (2004) We the Media. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp.23-43
Lessig, Lawrence (2004) Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The Penguin Press. P384
Borowski, Jenna (March 2006) Cate Mennon interviewed her for our Reader’s Theatre Project. [Transcription of interview]
Pettis, Bre. (April 27, 2006). I called Bre over Skype and recorded an interview, 27 April, 2006. [Mp3 of a Skype call]
Richardson, Will. Weblogg-ed. (March 12, 2006) Teaching Students to Teach. retrieved May 2, 2006 from http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/teaching-students-to-teach/
Richardson, Will. Weblogg-ed. (January 23, 2006) We’re Waking Up… Finally. retrieved May 7, 2006
from http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/were-waking-upfinally/
Warlick, David. 2 Cents Worth. (April 11, 2006). Flat Classrooms Curious Students. Retrieved May 4, 2006 from http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2006/04/11/flat-classrooms-curious-students/
Warlick, David. 2 Cents Worth. (April 10 , 2006). Flat Classrooms. Retrieved May 4, 2006
from http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2006/04/10/flat-classrooms/
Warlick, David. 2 Cents Worth. (April 26, 2006). Flat Classroom Fuel – Heritage. Retrieved May 4, 2006
from http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2006/04/26/flat-classroom-fuel-heritage/
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