I recently spoke at Edinburgh University on the subject of Digital Technology Children and Young People.I promiced I would post the slides and notes - sorry its taken a bit longer than I expected!
The slides that I used during the presentation can be found here:
Some of the points that I covered were:
1. The world is constantly evolving
The world is changing. We still do the same things but technology allows us to do thing in different ways. This is true in work play and education.
The two examples I used to illustrate this were:
i) Alice in Wonderland the book, Alice in wonderland available on the Nintendo DS and Alice in Wonderland for the Apple iPad.
The text is the same in all three versions so it still promotes literacy and reading but the delivery mechanism is different. Some will say the ‘text’ is more engaging on the iPad, some will say there is nothing like flicking through the pages of a paper novel and I would say it doesn’t make any difference at all it’s the same thing and we should allow choose how they want to engage with the ‘text’ if they want to engage with it at all.
ii) Scrabble the board game, scrabble for the Nintendo DS and Seek and Spell for the iPhone.
In all three versions of the above word game the principles are the same. Collect or be given letter to spell words to score points. The task is the same but technology may (or may not add value).
This led into the main theme of the presentation which was change.
2. Changing Young People
We looked at the Platform 4 Research from Chanel 4 which suggested that in the group of 12 – 24 year olds surveyed:
They personally own 8 devices (including MP3 player, PC, TV, DVD player, mobile phone, stereo, games console, and digital camera)
- They frequently conduct over 5 activities whilst watching TV
- 25% of them agree that “I’d rather stay at home than go on a holiday with no internet or phone access”
- A quarter of young people interviewed text or IM (instant message) friends they are physically with at the time
- They have on average 123 friends on their social network spaces
- And the first thing the majority of them do when they get home is turn on their PC
We also looked at some Ofcom research which suggests that:
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84% of children ages between 5 – 15 live in a household with intent access.
- 35% of 11 – 16 year olds have internet access in their bedroom (75% have a games console in their bedroom)
- 66% of 12-15 year olds have a social networking site (19% of 8 – 11 year olds)
- 49% of 12 – 15 year olds use gaming sites at least once a week, 47% of 8 – 11 year olds and 30% of 5-7 year olds
and, finally, some Becta research that states that:
- 99% of 14 year olds use a computer at home, at school or somewhere else (97% of 12 year olds)
I looked at these statistics to try and illustrate and make the following points:
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Lots of young people are connected and have access to the Internet. When consulting with young people you should consider using their technology and ask your questions in the on-line spaces that they occupy. You need to know what and where these spaces are first – they constantly change. We need to gather data at a local, regional and national level.
- Technology is changing youth culture – whether we agree with it or not the mobile phone and the holiday statistic is a good example of this. If we asked the same question 5 years ago the percentage would be a lot less and ten years ago it would have been practically 0%.
- Technology has changed language. The ‘friends’ example is a good illustration of this. Young people do not have the same definition of a ‘friend’ as an adult does. The language that we use when we engage with young people is very important.
- The way that children interact with social networking spaces are changing. Most 5 year olds who currently take part in social networking sites will do so through 3D avatar based environments. They will never grow into ‘text driven’ social networking spaces – why would they want too? This is why safe and responsible use in 3D virtual worlds is one of the key messages that we need to be getting across to children (from the age of 3+)
- Social gaming is on the rise with nearly 73, 000, 000 people using FarmVille in April 2010. More thought needs to go in to how we use games to engage more with young people. The Learning and Teaching Scotland Consolarum is a good example of this.
3. Changing Markets
Next we spent a bit of time looking at changing markets in particular looking at Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon and how strategically they all continue to move in on each others turf.
The main point of this part of the presentation was to flag up the importance of mobile in emerging markets and how increasingly this will play an important role in the future of socilety.
I also mentioned how young people often use their mobile phone credit as a credit card to buy goods on line. Working with parents and local communities is important to make sure they are aware of such technologies.
During this section of the presentation we looked at the changing technologies available in schools. In particularly we looked at the balance between the cost of technology and the end benefit to the learner (eg: Interactive whiteboards vs flip video camera).
I showed some examples from the recent RM Strategic Forums and some of the equipment that we now find in schools. In particular, we discussed the important if ICT infastructure to allow students to connect wireless devices to the Internet (phones, iPods, PSPs, netbooks etc…)
Finally, we discussed how technology like voice to text recognition and immersive gaming might have an impact how young people live, learn and play. More on this in a seperate post.
5. Key Skills
This section of the presentation focused on key skills that are required by young people in the 21st Century.
The skills I covered were:
i) Being digitally literate and the ability for young people to be able to evaluate electronic sources.
ii) Privacy and how it doesn’t really exist – I linked this to the importance of digital footprints.
iii) Intellectual property and how it is the oil of the 21st century.
6. Barriers
In the final section of the presentation I talked about barriers to the use of technology and young people.
The barriers I mentioned were:
i) Barrier: Children will misuse technology
Solution: accept that children have always misused technology the key now is (as always) to teach responsible use.
ii) Barrier: Professional development
Solution: Many ICT tools now have a low skills threshold we just need to help practitioners find them. We also need to move to a model of drip feed CPD.
iii) Barrier: Time
Solution: Accept that engaging pedagogy create class time because the classroom teacher is less likely to tied up with low level discipline.
iv) Barrier: It will never happen
Solution: accept that the technology revolution is already happening and has always been happening.
v) Barrier: The digital divideSolution: Accept that the grass always looks greener and that also the real digital divide is global not local.
If you were at the presentation please feel free to leave your feedback below or contact me by email (details top right)
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