Untitled- Week 7 post 3
It’s interesting to me to think about the attempts to integrate social media into education and the ways past new technologies have been attempted to be integrated and what happened then.
So televisio was the big tech innovation in the 50’s, right? I recall reading somewhere that the first inventors of television envisioned the device being used for educational programming, beamed into everyone’s homes at night, as a means by which everyone would learn and improve themselves to their fullest potential. Instead, of course, it was used primarily for entertainment. (I hear gameshows were big in the 50s)
I do not know (and I’m not doing the research now) to figure out how television was or even if it was incorporated into schools at the time. There wasn’t vcrs back then, so any programming for television was primarily broadcast based- I don’t know but doubt that network television was producing educational content for school broadcasts.
Television is closely analougs to films, though, right? There was definitely educational film content being created and projected in classes. This is one I remember coming across:
The development of vcrs and home media probably was a means to use television in some kind of more controlled educational context. I remember plenty of days of watching educainment videos in classes. I can’t say how effective they were.
So why make it? Because the technology was there, and why not try to maximize education.
It seems like computers went through a similar process. Surely being used for research and advancement,but for mainstream educational usage I can only really recall educational video games or CD-ROM enabled programs. And again, I don’t really know how effective these applications really were, certainly not to me in elementary through high school. About the best application I can really think of computers together with education was my typing classes, conducted on computers with a typing program that taught as well as measured a student’s typing ability.
You could say social media is just another attempt to use computers for education, and I’m not sure you’d be wrong. But it’s different- it’s more about the wireless internet communicative/sharing aspects of social media that make it a different thing than those other forays into computerized education that I was just mentioning. Because the television, the film strips, the vcr tapes and CD-ROMs, they were all one way. So will social media’s usefulness as an educational tool be in its ability to effect two way communication? Of course, if you think of social media as message boards and chat, it’s already done that by enabling distance education
So televisio was the big tech innovation in the 50’s, right? I recall reading somewhere that the first inventors of television envisioned the device being used for educational programming, beamed into everyone’s homes at night, as a means by which everyone would learn and improve themselves to their fullest potential. Instead, of course, it was used primarily for entertainment. (I hear gameshows were big in the 50s)
I do not know (and I’m not doing the research now) to figure out how television was or even if it was incorporated into schools at the time. There wasn’t vcrs back then, so any programming for television was primarily broadcast based- I don’t know but doubt that network television was producing educational content for school broadcasts.
Television is closely analougs to films, though, right? There was definitely educational film content being created and projected in classes. This is one I remember coming across:
The development of vcrs and home media probably was a means to use television in some kind of more controlled educational context. I remember plenty of days of watching educainment videos in classes. I can’t say how effective they were.
So why make it? Because the technology was there, and why not try to maximize education.
It seems like computers went through a similar process. Surely being used for research and advancement,but for mainstream educational usage I can only really recall educational video games or CD-ROM enabled programs. And again, I don’t really know how effective these applications really were, certainly not to me in elementary through high school. About the best application I can really think of computers together with education was my typing classes, conducted on computers with a typing program that taught as well as measured a student’s typing ability.
You could say social media is just another attempt to use computers for education, and I’m not sure you’d be wrong. But it’s different- it’s more about the wireless internet communicative/sharing aspects of social media that make it a different thing than those other forays into computerized education that I was just mentioning. Because the television, the film strips, the vcr tapes and CD-ROMs, they were all one way. So will social media’s usefulness as an educational tool be in its ability to effect two way communication? Of course, if you think of social media as message boards and chat, it’s already done that by enabling distance education
Charles,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point: Because the television, the film strips, the VCR tapes and CD-ROMs, they were all one way. This is the hardest part of integrating social media into education; social media isn’t a one way street. It is about people bouncing ideas off each other. It about collectively learning together. This is not the way that the education system has traditional worked. The use of social media is so much more than just changing mediums for presenting information. It requires a completely different approach in how information is presented and how students interact with the information.
Actually, if you take Trends & Issues, this is something you most likely will discuss - the initial uses of TV in education and schools for educational broadcasting. It was like that for radio as well. And prior to that, school museums which were horse drawn buggies that went to various schools with images and still film strip for educational purposes. for teachers to check out if I understood it correctly. It is fascinating! I actually just posted this on Twitter: yesterday https://twitter.com/kariknisely/status/1151973109135806466
ReplyDeleteOne of the big takeaways was that with every technology/media invention discussed, someone always said "This is the beginning to the end of teachers" "This will ruin schools" "This is the answer to all our problems" and these things continue to be said to this day.