“THE WEB: NOT A LIBRARY, BUT A SHOPPING MALL”Nicole McMillan

November 3, 2009

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)

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.

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.

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.

Washington

Students from lower income families.

Computer access is extremely limited.

Few computers in every classroom, generally not working.

Lower scores on standardized tests.

“Children’s use of computers at home and at school”

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.

Clearview Washington

“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)

How children learn…

Reverse Heritage Children

becoming more computer savvy than parents.

Hole in the Wall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

RzPCYCIM8DU

“Children, Politics, and the Internet: Stories from the Journalism Classroom.”

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.

Clearview Washington

“Gender and Computer Affinity: Typing versus Gaming”

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.

Males (at Washington) Females (at Washington)

“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?

“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.

Immersive Advertising

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

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.

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.

Questions?