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.