Response to Readings- Wednesday July 7th

Postman, Chap 5-7
Postman fears the whether our culture could survive our news being delivered in 22 minutes. 22 minutes filled with fluff, intro music, and entertainment. I after the last reading I was struggling with what Postman would think of new media. I think Postman would enjoy the options and variety that are available on the Internet. There are a variety of websites, beyond the major new networks, that provide solid news coverage. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t on our way to most online media being focused on entertainment. People need to be educated to find informative news sources.

Is Google Making Us Stupid and Get Smarter
I love to Google. Yes, it is now a verb. I can search something I find interesting and follow the links to learn about related topics until I find myself on a topic that is totally different than what I first searched. I think there are trade-offs for having this information online. I expect my information to be in quick bursts that are easy to digest. If this is what I expect, what do we expect from our students? As teachers, will we have to cater to this new high paced delivery system? Can all information be presented in this format? What about the basic skills? You can’t teach kids basic math and sentence structure in small bursts.
Facts are available. They are out there. Do we need to teach them in school if students will discover them on their own? I feel we don’t need to teach as many wrote facts, but have a new mission as teachers. Carr talked in depth about how the quality of Neitzsche’s writing changed when he started using a typewriter. Access to information is important, but the quality is important as well. If our students are using online media to learn many facts, are the facts accurate and presented in an academic, thoughtful process? If information is presented to them poorly, their synthesis will also be lacking. These are the teachable moments. We need to teach our students how to judge the media they consume and how to synthesize it in a way that has academic merit.