“It’s Mine: Kids Carrying Their Culture Wherever They Go”

A year ago, I was asked to contribute a chapter to a new book edited by Allison Druin, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. I was eager to do some ethnographic reporting on children and technology, and this felt like the perfect opportunity. The book has now been published and I'm honored to be part of it. The title is Mobile Technology and Children (Morgan Kaufmann, 2009), and if you're interested in interactive educational technology, it's well worth a read.

The chapter I wrote is titled: “It’s Mine: Kids Carrying Their Culture Wherever They Go.” Here’s an excerpt:

You might recognize this snapshot of today’s “ zoned-out” children: They hold an electronic device with a screen as small as a playing card. They sit next to their parents at an airport gate. Or maybe they are at a restaurant, or on the school bus, or in the bleachers at a sporting event. Their eyes are focused on the screen, their ears are jammed with ear buds, and their thumbs and fingers wildly push buttons. They could be playing a video game, texting a friend, or listening to music. Maybe they are doing all three. For these moments, it is as though the world around them doesn’t exist. They are somewhere else, inside this inscrutable and infuriating little black box.

To many, it’s a disconcerting picture. But try to understand it through a child’s eyes and you might see something different. Clearly, the technology is powerful. But why? What does it mean to children? It’s a safe guess that they are drawn to their gadgets for different reasons than many adults have for loving their own gadgets. After all, we’re talking about the (hopefully) carefree days of childhood, absent of obligations to stay current with the latest news, keep up with developments in the workplace, or be accessible to the boss. So, aside from the too-easy retort that mobile devices are “fun,” why do so many children treasurethem?

In the summer of 2008 I resolved to find out. I conducted 22 in-depth interviews in three jurisdictions of Northern Virginia with children ages five to 12 who used portable gaming devices, video players, music players, and cell phones. I let them speak for themselves as much as possible. I wanted to document not only the allure of the devices but how the children used them and why.

What I discovered was children’s strong sense of ownership and control over the technology. They stored their devices in areas dedicated to their most important belongings, even under their pillows. They took the time to decorate and personalize them. And when they used them, they felt empowered. By having a device in their hands, where adults were less apt to insert themselves, children could make independent choices about what to do with their time — what games were worth playing, which characters deserved a laugh, what songs were allowed to play over and over in their heads....

Some recent writing, including upcoming Newsweek piece

The next issue of Newsweek (dated June 1, 2009) includes an essay I wrote about Sesame Street -- celebrating its extraordinary influence in its first few decades and yet worrying about its waning influence amid so much media competition for young minds.

As readers know, most of my writing time is now fully devoted to EarlyEdWatch.org, where I'm blogging for the New America Foundation and pursuing larger projects related to early education. But that doesn't mean that I've stopped writing about the intersection of technology and children. Here are two pieces that might be of interest:

Digital Media, Literacy Instruction And The Linchpin: Well-Trained Teachers, March 25, 2009

TV Research: Let’s Get Smarter About What Young Children See, Hear and Experience, March 9, 2009

Time for Change (In My Own Little Corner of the World)

On this historic day, with inaugural festivities still ringing in my ears, I happen to have a minute to announce a change of my own: I've decided to take a position with the New America Foundation. As of this month, I'm working as a senior policy analyst for its Early Education Initiative. It is a great opportunity for me to extend my writing about child development and the science of learning, while also delving into how pre-K programs work best. My mission is to raise awareness of what sound research can tell us about young learners -- and what they need most in classrooms, on playgrounds, and at home.

I will be writing regularly at Early Ed Watch, New America's blog on early education. But I'll continue to write for general-interest publications about innovations, conundrums and fascinating trends in early childhood research. Sometimes they will intersect with technology and media issues that I have focused on in this blog, in recent presentations and in my book. More often, they will cover a broader spectrum of questions about how children grow and how to give them the richest, most fertile ground for sowing their curiosity, creative spirits and compassion for the world around them.

Don't be surprised if you see this blog go into long periods of hibernation. But please check out Early Ed Watch and pop over to my Web site for recent articles.

Happy Change Day,
Lisa

"Making a Science of Education"

If you are interested in how technology is changing the way students learn -- and whether we have the research to prove it -- go get your hands on the January 2nd issue of Science.

A video introducing the special issue, which is dedicated to education and technology, spotlights many of the big questions and problems with simply assuming that technology will, or won't, help young people to advance in their understanding of the world.

“We need to build a honest knowledge base of what doesn’t work, what does work and why,” says Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, “the way we have in science itself. I call it making a science out of education.”

A couple of articles that caught my eye include stories on rethinking the NSF's digital library and software that helps students hone their writing skills. I'm not a member of AAAS, however, so it will cost me $15 per article to read them... So I'm waiting to get to a library to be able to read the full issue. Hopefully many of you out there have a library or workplace that subscribes.

Yale study: ugly effects of too much media

Yale University's Medical School and the National Institutes of Health released a study of studies today. Culling data from 173 pieces of scientific research conducted since 1980, the researchers have found reams of evidence for negative associations between media use and poor child health, according to early news reports. To those of us who have been following the research on obesity and junk-food advertising, as well as the power of screen-based messages on young children and adolescents, the report is probably not a surprise. I'm eager to dig in and see how many of the studies focused on content -- since research has shown repeatedly that there is significance to the messages our children see. In fact, we often don't realize that they may not be learning what we think they are. (See an Outlook piece I wrote for The Washington Post about this problem and my blog post about it.)

The Benton Foundation links to multiple news reports on the study in its summary, "Too much media makes the baby go bad."

The New America Foundation and Common Sense Media is holding a briefing on the report right now in Washington, D.C. I'll link to the text of the report when it's available.

Book making, Starbucks style

I've been doing some writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education lately, and readers of this blog might be particularly interested in today's piece: New Machines Reproduce Custom Books on Demand

Here's a taste:

If you wonder what the future of book publishing might look, smell, and sound like, head north to the University of Alberta's bookstore in Edmonton. There a $144,000 machine is churning out made-to-order paperbacks at a cost of a penny a page.

It's the Espresso Book Machine, which converts digital files into bound books, one order at a time, in under 15 minutes. The contraption smells like glue, looks like a couple of copy machines attached to a cabinet, and emits its share of clunking and thunking sounds, said Jacqui Wong, the machine's operator, who calls it her "baby."

In the article, I write about how professors and college students are using the machine, but surely there are fun uses for younger students too: Anthologies of high school poetry. How-to manuals to accompany science fair projects. Collections of digitized artwork by kindergarteners. Flipbooks to amuse teachers and kids alike (or simply help students prepare for computer animation courses). Any other ideas out there?

Getting serious about "21st century skills"

I'm enjoying Jay Matthews' take on a new report about 21st century skills. Matthews, a widely respected education reporter for The Washington Post, is wary of anything plastered with the "21st century" label, dismissing it as "a marketing trick." And he's got a point. I've heard a lot of talk about how students need to be more creative and critical thinkers, able to invent and innovate and filter information on the fly. It sounds good in theory, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't what I hoped my daughters would someday be able to do. But I worry about how hard this will be to attain among children who, at very young ages, are given little room to explore intellectually, pigeonholed and herded into rote learning and letter-recognition drills, with little curiosity-driven learning at all. It is during early childhood that the seeds of those 21st century skills must be sown.

Matthews' beef with the concept is more about teachers: how they are rarely given the time, resources and roadmaps to actually make creativity and critical thinking part of their classroom strategies.

In his post on the Class Struggle blog a few weeks ago (I know, I'm slow) he rethinks some of his concerns, in light of this report, written by Elena Silva, senior policy analyst at the Education Sector, a think tank in D.C. I'm looking forward to digging into Silva's work.

By the way, for more thoughts on 21st century skills, don't miss "Digital Dialogue," the series of Q-and-As I conducted with three leading thinkers this summer for Parents' Choice. I interviewed Sir Ken Robinson, Barry Joseph, and Nichole Pinkard. Their thoughts on this subject continue to reverberate with me.