Media and Attention

There are many myths and truths about media and technology and its influences on academics. The most obvious point of this article that everyone should understand is no matter what media or technology you use the “What matters are the ways in which teachers choose to use, present, and teach with the technology” . In educational situation, the students use of technology in the school or home setting is only “good as the instruction they receive in how to use it”. How the teachers or parents choose to use technology will determine how it will “enhance student learning”.

As Marshall McLuhan famously said, "The medium is the message." I really don’t think that the number of hours you watch TV, or play on the computer or watch movies correlates to the how successful you are in school, but what they should be concentrating on is the content and skills they are using or gaining from watching or playing these programs. There are many things on TV that children should not be watching, especially with the rise of reality TV. However there are some interesting TV programs that have educational value, it just depends on how you incorporate and use it in your lessons. There are some issue with parents, administration and even teachers about watching movies and TV at school, because they want to know how it’s being used in the curriculum. I know some people feel that it’s just a “movie day”, and yes sometimes teachers do use movies as free time, but when movies or TV are used for educational value thing go in a uproar. I know that the Social Studies curriculum was questioned for watching the movie Glory in 8th after learning about the Civil War. Personally when, I found out about that I was shocked because that was a movie I remember watching and discussing when I was in 8th grade. Some parents are arguing that the movie is too violent, but I have to take a look at what kind of movies the students are watching now. Even though this “violent act” is what happened during the war, the movie was edited and these “violent” parts were taken out. These parents still think there is no educational value of watching this movie and the teachers need to prove why this movie has an educational value in their curriculum.

With the rise in new technologies and media some adults are scared because in the “traditional” sense, by using these technologies in school the students are not learning. Playing, being interactive, engaged, and having fun, can’t be considered learning, can it? It just depends how these are being used to “enhance student learning.”