Evan Bryce Riddle

FILM - TV - MEDIA

Now fetch your stylus and write this down

Everyday I’d look down at my watch and study the second hand intently, waiting for it to hit 3.30 when the final school bell rang. This meant freedom. This meant a stop at the Milk Bar for an ice cream (usually a Bubble-o-Bill or PaddlePop). It meant not having information forced down by throat. In primary (or elementary) school, from what I can remember, the structure was quite flexible, but the choice was rigid. In the mornings we’d usually have literacy, followed by numeracy, humanities, lunch break, sport or art, and subjects like music, foreign language, or philosophy were spread over the week.

What astounds me is that in the 14 or so years that has passed since I began primary school, very little has changed. But the world has changed around us. We rely on computers, our lives are documented in online social platforms, we bank online, and decide which restaurant to dine out at by looking at online reviews. Civilisation has changed, so why hasn’t the education approach? Should networked media be taught in early childhood was one of the many debates during this week’s Networked Media sympsosium.

Debate also exists regarding the high school curriculum, which in a lot of cases instead of teaching students how to benefit from the multiplicities of networked media, in fact does the opposite and block a significant proportion of online content. Facebook is a well known example. At my highschool (where news of a $40,000 theft was just posted in a Herald Sun article – oops) access to Facebook was denied. Although at University, the majority of my group assignments are coordinated via Facebook group, and it serves as a simple and effective messaging tool. Adrian Miles was shocked considering the current digital climate, that my cohort of students had not been informed during our 12 years of schooling on how to familiarise ourselves with online legitimacy.

I have my own opinion on the matter. Mainstream schools push information onto students, while alternative systems such as Steiner or Montessori focus on independent and natural learning. I consider a balance in between the two as an ideal learning method, however I understand that we all are different and some methods appeal to some more than others. For me, students need to be guided at first so that they can then adapt. Before networked literacies can be taught or self taught and skills developed, a basic understandings of multimedia, technology and computers must be established first.

Obviously changes that would be put in place would not affect me, they affect the current and future generation of children. It astounds me every time I see my 4 year old cousin playing Candy Crush on an iPad. Technology consumers are getting younger and younger. Soon I’ll be the dad who can’t work the remote, because it’s invisible and has to be called by telepathic signals, or something absurd like that. I’m intrigued as to what this next generation will be able to create, which was a view shared by many in the symposiumboy with laptop.

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