by Scott McLeod | Oct 10, 2021 | Safety and Security, Youth and Media |
I’ve written on this blog before about irresponsible fearmongering when it comes to technology. It’s one thing to judiciously weigh the pros and cons when it comes to technology and our children. It’s a whole ‘nother to just throw claims out there that lack evidence.
In today’s New York Times article, Does Instagram harm girls? No one actually knows., Dr. Laurence Steinberg, Professor of Psychology at Temple University, said:
… there is a growing scientific literature on the links between social media use and adolescent mental health. But as yet it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions from it, in part because very few studies have the characteristics listed above. Of the better studies that have found a negative correlation between social media use and adolescent mental health, most have found extremely small effects – so small as to be trivial and dwarfed by other contributors to adolescent mental health [emphasis added].
Complicating matters further is that in the Facebook surveys, twice as many respondents reported that Instagram alleviated suicidal thinking than said it worsened it; three times as many said it made them feel less anxious than said it made them feel more so; and nearly five times as many reported that Instagram made them less sad than that it made them sadder.
We should be just as skeptical about correlational research that links social media use to reports of positive well-being as we are about research that reaches the opposite conclusion. But given the widespread eagerness to condemn social media it’s important to remember that it may benefit more adolescents than it hurts.
Facts matter. Truth matters. It may be that Instagram actually is more harmful to teenage girls than helpful. But until we have better evidence, let’s be careful before we make wide-ranging claims about youth and technology, okay?
by Scott McLeod | Jan 4, 2019 | Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Youth and Media |
We spent the last 200+ years (at least) pushing consumption models of learning on most of our students. We asked them to be passive recipients of whatever information came from the teacher or textbook. We gave them few opportunities to question the reliability or validity of the information that we spoon-fed them. We trusted that someone else did the filtering for us and them beforehand. And in many cases, we actually punished kids who dared to ask questions or present alternative viewpoints.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that we now have an information / media literacy problem with our adults. We shouldn’t be surprised that most of our citizens have trouble determining the validity and reliability of digital and online information sources. We shouldn’t be surprised that we are easy prey for those who spread misinformation, deception, and outright lies.
It’s going to get even worse as new tools for creating and spreading falsehoods proliferate. We should be more alarmed that we’re not doing more about this issue in our elementary and secondary classrooms. But we don’t seem to be. Not yet, not in most school systems. A few token ‘digital citizenship’ lessons from a teacher or librarian and we seem to think we’ve addressed this concern. A few conversations that in no way prepare students for this:
When will we take seriously the challenge of preparing our graduates for our new information landscape? And what are we going to do about all of our graduates?
by Scott McLeod | Sep 16, 2017 | Research and Evaluation, Social Media, Youth and Media |
Information literacy has been a hot topic of recent conversation. Many folks believe that web sites that traffic in false information and ‘fake news’ may have influenced the last United States presidential election. Traffic on the Snopes web site, which debunks false rumors, has never been greater. Ideological separation also is being driven by the ways that we sort ourselves in our schools, neighborhoods, friendship groups, political affiliations, and faith institutions. Already often isolated from the dissimilar-minded, we then also self-select into individualized news media and online channels that can result in walled-garden ‘echo chambers’ or ‘filter bubbles.’
To combat our growing concerns about fake news and filter bubbles, we’re going to have to take the task of information literacy more seriously. And that means rethinking some organizational and technological practices. As I noted in a previous blog post, our information landscape is changing both rapidly and drastically. Today we have a digital, online, hyperconnected, interactive, global information landscape that often is free or low-cost, fosters decentralized creation and participation and sharing, is frequently real-time, and has exponential reach. This landscape stands in sharp contrast to our older analog landscape that relied on ink on paper rather than bits in the ether, was expensive and thus primarily oriented around experts, fostered consumption and scarcity, and was fairly static and slow to change. As learning institutions bestowed with the societal charge of preparing informed citizens and knowledge workers, schools must help their students and graduates master the dominant information landscape of today and tomorrow, not just yesterday. And right now most schools are struggling…
School leaders can do several things to foster information literacy, combat fake news, and increase students’ information and technology fluency. One critical leadership behavior is helping educators understand that information literacy is everyone’s job, not just that of the librarian or media specialist. Being an informed citizen, being a critical thinker, being able to deeply and thoughtfully analyze complex texts – these have all been traditional student roles in schools but they are taking new forms in our emerging information spaces. Given the complexity of our new information landscape, we no longer can trot students down to the media center a few times a year to learn from the librarian about trusted voices, credible sources, and appropriate citation. All educators now must integrate information literacy in authentic and meaningful ways into ongoing digital and online work with students. Using our disciplinary expertise and experience, we thus can appropriately contextualize critical discernment. In other words, we must help our students dissect and understand subject-specific media such as false videos about the environment or websites dedicated to political untruths or viral myths about health care while they have us available as content area experts to help guide them.
School leaders also must recognize that in order for students to be actively engaged in – and critical consumers of – digital and online information channels, they must have access to technologies and online environments that often are heavily filtered or completely blocked. We can’t help our graduates be citizens and critical thinkers within spaces to which they don’t have access. This is particularly true if we want students to be actively involved within political, scientific, and other digital spaces rather than passive recipients. For instance, teaching online information literacy by pre-selecting a small handful of resources for students to analyze is vastly different from teaching students to navigate and make sense of our vast, complex online information commons.
School leaders also must create safe spaces for teaching and learning about controversial topics. Imagine, for instance, a high school government teacher who asked her students to follow the primary social media channels of the two primary political parties here in the United States. On the Republican side, students could follow GOP websites, Twitter feeds, and YouTube videos and subscribe to conservative blogs such as RedState, HotAir, Instapundit, and Michelle Malkin. On the Democratic side, students also could follow relevant websites, Twitter feeds, and YouTube channels, along with liberal blogs such as Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, and ThinkProgress. Sprinkle in a few other sites such as The Hill, Politico, FiveThirtyEight, Fox News, and CNN and we can see how real-time social media could be an incredibly powerful lens through which to view, discuss, and understand government in action, not just as abstract concepts from a dry textbook. I’m not sure how many teachers would be willing to try this, however, given schools’ traditional aversion to anything controversial. Principals and school systems must be willing to buffer a few anxieties in order to enable these kinds of meaningful learning experiences.
Schools also have to stop treating students as ‘digital natives’ who already are knowledgeable about and proficient with technology. Youth fluency with social and gaming technologies may imply certain levels of technology comfort but does not mean that students have the ability to use digital tools in academic- and work-productive ways. Not only is the ‘digital natives’ concept disproven by research, it also seems to grant us permission as educators to avoid the difficult challenge of fostering technology- and information-fluent students because we supposedly have little to teach them. Schools’ reluctance to own this challenge – perhaps because of our educators’ own lack of technology fluency – results in findings like the recent study from Stanford University that showed that students’ current information literacy skills are abysmal.
Finally, school leaders should recognize that those teachers who enable youth to actively interact and create online also are creating opportunities for students to learn essential lessons about responsible participation, sharing, contribution, etiquette, and digital citizenship as natural extensions of their classwork. This approach is far more meaningful and impactful than a few isolated media literacy sessions or digital citizenship lectures. We say that we want engaged citizens and critical thinkers. So let’s do a better job of preparing our students to be thoughtful consumers and active contributors within our new technology-suffused information spaces.
What is your school doing to help students with fake news and filter bubbles?
[cross-posted at Front and Central]
Image credit: Fake news figure, Stuart Rankin
by Scott McLeod | Sep 8, 2016 | Student Agency and Voice, Youth and Media |
Here are some questions that you could discuss with students during a 20- to 25-minute advisory period. These might be particularly apt for middle and high schoolers. If each advisory took notes and then you compiled the responses at the school level, I bet that you would learn some interesting things about the youth that you serve and spark some useful conversations with your teachers and administrators.
- What are some interesting or surprising ways in which you use technology at home to connect, share, and/or learn? (examples might include making videos on x topic, participating in a learner community around y topic, posting stop motion films, hacking their Minecraft server code, setting up and selling items in their own online shop, sharing their original artwork or music or writing or photography, participating in community or charity or political work, highlighting their athletic or crafting skills, gaining skills in a new area of interest, or…)
- How is your technology use at home different than your technology use at school? Which seems more empowering to you and why?
- How is your technology use different than that of the adults around you?
- How can we close whatever gaps exist between home uses of technology and school uses of technology?
What would you add? Let me know if you do this!
by Molly Bleything | Apr 26, 2015 | 21st Century Skills, Activities, Assessment, Assistive and Accessible, Blogging, Communication, Contests, Guest Bloggers, Higher Education, Our Changing World, Social Media, Student Agency and Voice, Youth and Media |
As Worlds came to end, I realized something: experience is everything. In your life you will feel an endless amount of emotion and all of it will have been caused by the experience. We ended up only winning two matches and loosing the rest. The floor mats were squishy because they were new and so the wheels on our robot would sink into the ground. There was a team (The Pandas) and a group that was there (a sponsor) who let us borrow their wheels so that we could drive a little bit better. The rest was just being paired against teams who were better than us, and that’s completely okay. Robotics and the FIRST program isn’t about winning. Yes, it is nice to get an award for being the best but there is so much more to it.
Aside from the arena, there is also the pit area. Think of it like NASCAR for a minute and you will understand. In between matches, if something really bad happens to the robot (Linda,) she will come to the pit to get fixed…and quickly. The pit area is also a place for judges to come talk to us and a place for us to present ourselves to the general public/other teams. We decorate our pit area pretty heavily like many other teams there. It attracts many little kids and a lot of adults too… our theme is pretty much “any-age-friendly.” Gillian and I decided to mix things up this time and we would dance and sing for teams along with statue standing. We had stamps, buttons, key chains, stickers and pamphlets to give out. The team was interviewed twice while down there. Once by the people of FIRST and another time by Student News Net! The FTC played our interview on the live stream and Student News Net will publish our story tomorrow (Monday!)
At closing cerimonies Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, and many others gave speeches, handed out awards and introduced new technology to us. They gave a senior recognition and a small speech to all of us…we got to stand up. In a stadium of thousands it was intimidating. It was exciting and made everyone jittery for the next couple of years. It got me pumped up for the next couple of years. After that, we had the “after party.” We got to hear Christina Grimmie perorm along with BoysLikeGirls a pop punk band. We didn’t end up getting back to the hotel until around 11 PM-ish and I got home about 5 minutes about (6:00 PM.) It’s really nice to be back in Iowa around familiar things…like my bed. It has been a long but extremely successful week for the Sock Monkeys. We hope to do this all over again next year-even though I nor Logan, Caleb, and Giovanni will be there.
A HUGE thank you to Scott McLeod for letting me share the experiences of FIRST again and a HUGE thank you to my community/school for helping us get to where we are now!
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by Molly Bleything | Apr 22, 2015 | Activities, Blogging, Guest Bloggers, Higher Education, International, Presentations, Reading, Reviews, Scenarios, Social Media, Tech Tools, Videos, Youth and Media |
As the day continued, they started matches. If you were watching on the live stream, you would have seen us in action! If not: You will see photos at the bottom and I will start to explain. The pit area is set up and ready to go! We will take some video tomorrow of what will be happening and why. It will you guys a more “behinds the scene” look of how much work it actually takes!(in the photo to the left, we are talking to Dark Matter…one the three teams from our Iowa Trio at the North Super Regionals. The three teams together were Finalist Alliance Award)
Our Qualification Matches are: 9, 25, 47, 57, 78, 91, 101, 122, and 132. Tune in tomorrow to the live stream. #Support Lets do this!
We only got to play the first two with the time allotted and we are currently in 8th place! We are 2-0 and extremely excited for tomorrow. Tomorrow will consist of many more matches, scouting, and going to the big dome (we are currently at Union Station)! At the Edwards Jones Dome we will have opening ceremonies, a college/scholarship row, and we will be able to see the FRC (First Robotics Competition) and the FLL (First Lego League)… We will also be able to see the companies who helped sponsor this event and get a lot of one on one information from them.
I don’t really have a lot of information except for good news. The robot is still working great as well as the team members. Just remember: Gracious Professionalism and Continuous Improvement!
Thank you so much to the community/business’s who helped get us here! You guys mean SO much to us! #MonkeySwag #WorldChampionship #International #SUPERCOOL
by Molly Bleything | Apr 22, 2015 | Gaming, Guest Bloggers, Higher Education, International, Interviews, Our Changing World, Presentations, Professional Development, Safety and Security, Social Media, Youth and Media |
Hey guys! So today has been crazy and it is currently only 11:11 (make a wish!) I’m sitting upstairs in Union Station, away from the pit area so that I can blog. We can’t have wifi or hot spots in the pit area OR the arena because it will interfere with the robots and the game. We haven’t started playing matches yet, but we did have judging this morning! So, in the FTC judging happens at different times at every competition. This year is happened at 9:30 AM….bright and early. In judging we have the whole team, our engineering notebook, our robot, and anything extra that we think we might need to show to judges. The judging room is usually 2-4 people, our coach and obviously…us! Every team has a different idea or strategy that they use to talk to judges. Public speaking can sometimes be really nerve wrecking so we practice before we go in and make sure the team knows what they are saying. It is cool to see how the team becomes more confident and bold with speaking as the season goes on. For the World Championship we chose to set up our blogging like this:
1. Everyone will walk in and shake the judges hand while lining up saying “hello” or “how are you?”
2. We will the the judges stickers, buttons and key chains.
3. Logan Gross (one of the main speakers/a senior on the team) will be a key speaker along with me (Molly…who is also a senior) He will help transition from one topic to the next and I will help with forgotten or missing information.
4. As we step forward to speak, we will introduce ourselves.
5. After we all talk about what we have done/presented everything to the judges, we will ask if they have any questions (assuming there is time left..)
We only have 20 minutes to tell them about 9 months of progress, so sometimes it can get kind of tricky and we have to choose the more important topic. And today…for the FIRST time this season, we were able to finish judging AND answer questions from the judges which is a huge accomplishment considering we have a team of 17. Now that judging is over, the robot has to go to judging. She has to pass hardware/software inspections and she has to be able to fit in a 18×18 inch box. Only 4 or 5 of the team members go to robot inspections though. It is usually our main programmer, and our drive team. While they are doing that the rest of the Sock Monkeys have time to take pictures, scout, have some free time, or sit in the pit area. I usually sit in the pit area, but right now I am blogging. 😛 The people who sit in the pit area always smile, and say “Hi” to as many people as possible. A lot of other teams will come and scout us out, asking about our robots abilities, strengths, and weakness’s. We will have a lunch break from 12:30-1:30 and then we will continue on our day. Today isn’t very exciting because we haven’t started matches yet. We have gotten to meet the South Korean’s, the Australians, the Middle Easterners, and the Canadians though! Everyone else has been from the United States so far.
I’ll post tonight again with all of the pictures, etc!
by Scott McLeod | Apr 21, 2015 | Mind Dump, Safety and Security, Social Media, Student Agency and Voice, Youth and Media |
Peggy Drexler said:
The problem with social media, and our dependence on it, is that it allows people to present and receive whatever angle they want, biased or not, fair or not. It’s the “power of the press” without the objectivity or accountability demanded of the actual press. And it has enabled a dangerous vigilantism that makes those who use that power no different from the ones they are supposedly rallying against. Think about it.
via http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/opinions/drexler-espn-reporter-britt-mchenry/index.html
I think that second sentence is a pretty powerful one. Worth talking about with our students…
by Salam Keadan | Dec 10, 2013 | Guest Bloggers, International, Online Learning, Youth and Media |
I have a dream, I dream of a world with no racism, with acceptance no matter what religion, colour, language, or ideology.
My name is Salam, I am 18 years old, and I was rejected my entire life by the people around me, something that made me so insecure.
I was born in a country that defines itself by religion. I was treated differently because of my religion, because of the way I dress. Basically, because I was not Jewish, I was never welcomed in the state of Israel, even though I am an Israeli citizen!
There is a whole wide community of undefined citizens just like me. I am a Muslim Arab that wanted to make my voice heard – to share my story and help my community – and found the perfect opportunity through this inspiring great program called Model United Nations.
I had a dream but I didn’t have a voice until I joined the Online Model United Nations program!
Why is this program so important to me?
Well for the first reason that it accepts anyone no matter who they are, for the first time in my life I felt like I was welcomed to something, that people actually accepted me for who I am. I was part of a greater community, and I felt comfortable sharing my story.
All the conflicts facing the world today could be easily solved by sharing our stories together, by meeting one another, because most humans are led by their government or leaders who decide for them who they are, but human nature tends toward a peaceful safe environment, deep down inside all human beings are the same, nobody cares about religion or colour or anything else for that matter, all these titles that were given to separate us, we all eventually just want to live a happy peaceful life.
And that can’t be done unless people realize who they really are. All people around the world should share their stories, especially in this time when it’s just a click away to communicate with anyone, anywhere.
Even though the status quo over here is somehow steady, I shouldn’t be afraid of sharing my story because it might jeopardize it, neither does anyone else, nobody should be forced to live hand to mouth, we all should share our stories. It’s the thing that gets us closer!
And we shouldn’t just not care about each other, I mean when I share my story I would love to get a response from someone else, telling me their story and how they can relate.
O-MUN gave me a voice, and the chance to meet students from all around the world and share my story, not just online but also in international conferences. I never thought I would meet students from Islamic and Arabian countries before, but I am so glad I did because it changed my whole perspective. Most things that are presented to us by the media are not true, we can’t jump into conclusion or start a conflict based on a misleading statement.
So let’s take an advantage of the Internet and let it unite us, such an incredible online program that united me with students from all around the world.
Hopefully someday we can all look over our differences, live together peacefully and create our own superior united government that unites us all.
We all should be free to be who we want.
Thanks to O-MUN for making my dream seem more realistic and achievable. And, of course, for the person behind all of this, Ms. Lisa Martin!
Now it’s your turn to share your story!
Sharing my story at Qatar Leadership Conference 2013 and Pictures from conferences and programs I joined.
Previously in this series
Salam Keadan is 18 years old. She is one of the Middle East and Africa Assistant Directors at O-MUN and hopes to study Liberal Arts at TAU International, She has recently started an O-MUN club at her school, Al-Qasemi High School in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Israel.
You can find her on Facebook and share your story!
by Scott McLeod | Dec 5, 2013 | Leadership and Vision, Mind Dump, Our Changing World, Social Media, Youth and Media |
George Couros says:
“Kids don’t have enough balance.”
“We are dumber because of technology.”
“People are disconnected from one another because of how we use technology.”
“Technology kills our face-to-face interactions.”
In my travels, I have heard all of these arguments.
…
You will hear people say things like “Twitter is stupid.” Just to clarify, Twitter is a thing and can’t be stupid. It is the equivalent of a student not understanding math and then saying “math is stupid.” It is often our lack of understanding that leads us to make statements like this, which I made myself. One of the questions that I ask people when they make these remarks is, “from your use of Twitter, tell me why it is stupid?”, which is sometimes followed by, “Well, I have never used it.” That would be the equivalent of me saying that a Lamborghini handles terribly. I could say that, but I have never experienced driving one, nor have I ever done any research on the vehicle.
via http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/4271
