“The web: Not a Library, But a shopping Mall”

1. “The web: Not a Library, But a shopping Mall” Nicole McMillan November 3, 2009

3. A bit about Ellen Seiter • Media scholar and professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego. • Two previous books: • Television and New Media Audiences (2001) • Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture (1993)

4. Children’s Access – Is it a good thing? • Children generally thoroughly enjoy using computers. • There is always more information on the Internet than in a school’s library. • Personal and socially meaningful goals.

5. On the other hand… • Reliability of information. • Web browsing not easily monitored. • Profit motives of websites can be hidden. • Bias of information on Internet towards popular culture subjects.

6. Clearview • Well-funded school with middle class population. • Technology is top spending priority. • Computers in every classroom, plus a computer lab. • High standardized test scores.

7. Washington • Students from lower income families. • Computer access is extremely limited. • Few computers in every classroom, generally not working. • Lower scores on standardized tests.

8. “Children’s use of computers at home and at school” Clearview Washington • Up-to-date programs on each computer. • Time spent in computer classroom each week. • Most students have computers at home. • Broken computers, different programs. • Limited time on computers during school hours. • Generally, do not have access to computers at home.

9. “Success-Maker” “shocked by the unimaginative and deeply traditional methods of learning SuccessMaker promoted. The program seemed to have achieved a nearly exact replication of the boring and conservative content, artwork, and questions found in the routine worksheets distributed for decades to U.S. students”. (p. 5)

10. How children learn… • Reverse Heritage • Children becoming more computer savvy than parents. • Hole in the Wall • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzPCYCIM8DU

11. “Children, Politics, and the Internet: Stories from the Journalism Classroom.” Clearview Washington • Clearview children knew more about reasonable stories. • Had less trouble navigating the Internet. • Turned to the community to look for stories. • Had trouble differentiating between informational sites and profit driven sites.

12. “Gender and Computer Affinity: Typing versus Gaming” Males (at Washington) Females (at Washington) • Gaming, visiting celebrity fan sites. • Lacked advantage of having been raised with technology. • “Tech-gods” • Greater interest in typing, and more academically focused. • Need to find ways to encourage girls to become more involved.

13. “Wrestling with the Web” • Students spend time on Internet looking up sites of personal interest. • The WWE dominated for Latino boys at Washington. • How can this be turned into an educational tool?

14. “Virtual Pets: Devouring the Children’s Market” • Based around virtual pets that live in the virtual world of Neopia. • Visitors create accounts and take care of up to four pets. • Earn NeoPoints through games, advertisements, etc.

15. Immersive Advertising “…the development of online role-playing game Neopets, which took advertising to children to an entirely new level.” (Seiter, p.84)

16. A Virtual World • Children under the age of 10 not capable of understanding marketing tactics. • Encouraging children to spend hours in front of the screen. • Recruiting children into consumer culture.

17. Seiter’s Conclusions • The Internet promised to be a tremendous new opportunity for education. • Deepens the divide between technologically rich and poor. • Don’t forget about the basics. • Children need to possess basic degree of information literacy. • Children need to be taught to be critical thinkers about cyberspace.

18. Questions?