Growing Up Digital
A sobering report was recently published by a group concerned with understanding perceptions of digital media on learning.
While “access to the Internet” scored high as important, things like online socialization and games did not.
This echoes, for me, some traits I’ve seen in the adults that teach our students, and likely too mirrors many parents.
If you don’t use the Internet for social interaction–from friends and Facebook to daily communication (e-mail, chat)–you likely won’t see it important for your kids. The same goes for games.
I’m less convinced games are a great idea, just because a multiplicity of good, educational games have yet to be written. They have tremendous potential, however. I’m glad to see this year some of our students using tools like Scratch or Stagecast Creator in our schools. Not a profound nod in this direction, but a start.
This report better underscores for me some trepidation from our teachers in embracing social networking and the opportunities for students to learn through using technology for communication. As ever, we need to highlight the better examples and light some fires to get a teacher here, or another one over there, interested. There is potential–a huge amount–among those bits and bytes.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:38 am
One of my biggest issues with modern video games is that they simply are not now what they once were – the bad guys are no longer little green, squiggly, pixelated alien invaders to be blasted with giddy impunity. Instead, the bad guys who you’re out to gun down, beat up, or in some way kill, are ultra-realistic, breathing, bleeding human-like characters. They limp if you only graze ‘em. They yell out in pain. For all intents, they’re… people.
We have no tolerance for the idea of some terrorist gunning down people in the street – and rightly so – yet we’re perfectly fine with (often very young) children doing very similar horrific, mindless violent acts to video game characters? Sure, there’s some difference, but is there enough?
It’s easy (and maybe even just a little justifiable) to villainize videogames on the whole because they are predominantly gratiutously graphic affairs that only serve to feed our most base desires and desensitize children to horrific violence. Sure, there are age-appropriate ratings and suggestions for ensuring that very young children are safeguarded against some of this stuff, but really, that stuff only serves the attorneys. Barely post-toddler age children ARE routinely playing the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Bad Company, etc. And their Gen Y parents fail to see anything wrong with that…