Header Artwork by BT Livermore
Social Icons Courtesy of Davide Di Cillo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
In Part One, the report discusses the multiple reasons why eTextbooks like Amazon's Kindle are a much better approach for our nation’s students. The reasons they are superior include the ability to update eBooks relatively cheaply and easily, environmental and health benefits (such as reducing loads on young backs and shoulders), and the enormous opportunity to make texts more exciting and interactive—like the other tools children use today and that compete for their attention.
In Part Two, this paper discusses the economics of this approach. Cost estimates in the education world are notoriously sketchy and often self-serving, but it seems clear that over time an investment in these tools would produce big savings.
Finally, in Part Three, this paper outlines how we could implement such a plan, and why there could be broad-based support for it.
Also of interest is an article in the September/October 2009 issue of Scholastic Administrator Magazine titled, "Will the Kindle Change Education?" The article does a really good job of weighing in on both the pros and cons of using the Kindle in the classroom.
A lot of education folks have focused on using the mobile phone as the primary device to usher in the age of mlearning (mobile learning).
But perhaps we should be paying more attention to e-book devices like the Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook or the (rumoured) Apple tablet as the more viable mlearning option to delivering media rich and digital content to kids at school.
A lot the current research shows that when kids go to school they are disconnected from how they live outside the classroom. Either way, what's important is that we take a look at and try using any resource or tool--including e-books--that gets kids' more engaged and invested in their education.
Related: Amazon's Jeff Bezos Gives Away Kindles To His Alma Mater, Asks For Feedback
The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) in the UK has launched an innovative and free e-learning course for adults and those who work with children to help them beef-up their digital web skills.
The easy to navigate site has a self-directed "interactive guidance course and quiz to help families manage the risks while enjoying the benefits of the web."
The primary goals of the myGuide initiative is to address many of the top parental concerns about the web, including phishing and spam, as well as chat rooms, music file-sharing, and safety filters.
The site stresses the importance of open family discussions and where to go for additional information and help. At the public launch of the new resource, Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan said:
“Today’s generation of children and young people are often much more computer savvy than their parents, something that can be of great concern as mums, dads and carers look to keep their children safe online without restricting their enthusiasm for and exploration of the Internet.
The free myguide service is designed specifically for people in this situation. The new Family Internet Safety guide will help people become more knowledgeable about the risks and how to manage them.
Thanks to DK, over at MediaSnackers, for the heads-up on the myGuide program.
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"The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." - Donald Calne
Last week, for those of us who work in the youth digital media space, a big chunk of everyone's attention was focused on the 'Youth Media Consumption' memo written by an intern at Morgan Stanley.
While many folks were debating its merits and findings, a much less publicized event took place that asked teens not "how" they use the web, but instead focused on the emotion behind "why" they use the web.
The Web Makes Me Feel (TWMMF) is a project headed up by MediaSnackers, a leading UK youth media consultancy, that explored the emotional responses to the social web among 13-19 year olds living in the UK.
Why focus on emotion?
Emotion is a very persuasive hook that, sometimes even more than logic and reason, influences the choices we make, what we buy, or where we go on the web.
Emotion can also drive user adoption and/or motivate people to use (or not) certain types of technology (think iPhone or Kindle) or social networking sites (think Twitter and Facebook!) and in an e-learning environment, emotional resonance is the glue that holds students' attention and fosters student retention.
As part of the TWMMF project, the MediaSnackers team distributed 500 postcards to 13-19 year olds and asked them to describe in one word how the web makes them feel. Respondent's were then given one additional line to explain the reasoning behind their choice. In all, MediaSnackers collected over 143 different emotions.
The TWMMF website contains an aggregation of all the emotions collected (over 431 cards) and, here's the really slick part, allows users to explore all the responses and dig deeper by drilling down to look at the results for each word by age and/or gender.
Some of the key findings:
The TWMMF project and website were rolled out on July 15th at an event held at NESTA and attended by both participants, researchers and other members of the social media community.
At the launch event, the MediaSnackers team asked several of the attendee's 'How Does the Web Make You Feel and Why?' The responses from the video interviews mostly seemed to dovetail with the results of the postcards.
One response, in particular, caught my attention.
When asked the question, this gentleman responded that the web makes him feel guilty. At first I thought this was an odd response. He went on to explain that the web made him feel guilty because at times he felt an internal conflict between his offline and online life.
Ahhh, there it is--the perfect summation of what this project is all about! He felt conflicted because he had made the same emotional connections in his online relationships as he had in his offline life.
Beyond metrics, demographic research, user-experience design, usability studies and other measurable (rational) aspects--in many cases what actually drives our use of the web is emotional resonance.
Many times parents, educators, media and government types draw conclusions about Millennials, social networking and their 'always-on' lifestyles using a methodology based on rational facts and data crunching, failing to give the social and emotional dynamics of teens and technology any consideration.
This project also confirms what the Millennials having been trying to say about the social web all along: it's not about technology, it's about relationships.
Perhaps it's time we started listening.
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