New Digital Media: Teachers' Roles as Trustees

The GoodWork® Project at Harvard University has been studying how individuals strive to achieve work that is “excellent in quality, ethical, and engaging to the worker” (http://www.goodworkproject.org/research/digital.htm). Much of their recent work has turned to digital media --- cyberspace --- in which youth engage in social as well as work activities.

Pettingill (2006) reports on the trust that youth place in internet sources. She found that participants who engaged in social networking sites daily were “more likely to cite Wikipedia as a trusted source for information. Subjects in this subset also had a tendency to search for content that has a perspective similar to theirs and exhibits consistency with other sites” (p. 7). Moreover, the researcher determined that teachers are regarded as trustees, “particularly regarding how to choose credible sources of information” (p. 9).

All right, teachers: raise your hands if you are comfortable with new digital media. Hands down.

Okay, I’ll start again. What is new digital media?

When digital computers became ubiquitous, our homes became sites for the Internet and computer games. Yet those media were only the beginning of new media, however. Online publications have emerged. Typographic press has been transformed through image manipulation software and desktop publishing tools.

Thus, new media represent new forms of digital media and remake traditional media forms. Think of CD players and their reincarnation, IPODs. VCRs became DVD players, and those are being supplanted by fascinating applications of video and audio streaming. Most importantly, information is shared and modifed by a number of users. No longer do intellectual property rights carry sacrosanct, individualistic meanings for composers.

In a recent study, ETS ("ICT Literacy Assessment Preliminary Findings", 2006) found that most students possess undeveloped Internet comprehension. Additionally, students seemed unable to critically reframe traditional media into new digital media genres.

Students rely on their teachers as guides to collective mapping as to what is and is not credible in the new digital media world. So, teachers, raise your hands if you agree with the following statement: “Teachers in the 21st century need to gain fluency in use of the tools of new digital media in order to help students ascertain credibility of the information they encounter online.”

I, for one, have my hand raised skyward. I’m starting tomorrow. I’m going to take a risk. I’m writing an e-mail to the Technology Coordinator in my building to inquire if our school has any policies about teachers and students blogging as part of public school instruction. Yes, again I will be extending past the curriculum mandates. Yes, my rebel status will rise in conversations. And, more pragmatically, my time as an English teacher will have a new layer of response added in what is already a time management nightmare. Sure, I will have to spend careful time monitoring students’ comments. Yes, I anticipate that I will receive phone calls, e-mails, and maybe even a few personal visits from parents and guardians who will voice concern about public posting of student work. But my instincts and pedagogical beliefs tell me it will be worth it.

I feel that more important than collegial critique is my role in Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development as someone who can scaffold students’ learning. Who knows? Maybe, someday, when my students have long forgotten my name and face, they may encounter an Internet scam and know how to assess its value. Maybe one of my students will figure how to distinguish between sources as entertainment or superficial information from those of scholarly research when a personal crisis occurs.

In all likelihood, my influence in asking students to participate in a classroom social networking website will have more immediate results. New digital media in the classroom may introduce opportunities for us to have conversations about ourselves, the various personas we all embrace, and the occasional vulnerabilities we all feel in our lives and world.

Those chances to reach out transcend any classroom risk or traditional and new media applications: real conversations about lives lived penetrate the heart of lifelong learning.

Resources

ICT Literacy Assessment Preliminary Findings. (2006, 03.31.08). from http://www.etc.org/ictliteracy
Pettingill. (2006). Trust Without Knowledge: How Young Persons Carry out Research on the Internet [Electronic Version]. The Goodworks Project Papers, 48, 1-17. Retrieved 03.31.08 from http://pzweb.harvard.edu/eBookstore/PDFs/GoodWork48.pdf.
Vygotsky. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.