Quote
"Students understand that they need to have these skills in order to exist in the world, so they're way ahead of us. Most kids relate to each other through music or graphics. They are regularly bombarded with images and sound. Most of their awareness comes through language of moving images and cinema. That's why it's so important that they learn the language of it." (Lucas, 2002)
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This quote made me think about what my Intro to Special Education professor Dr. Moroose was talking about in class the other day. He was talking about his very smart and well mannered 6th grader grandson. His grandson came to visit and after he was through with his homework he hooked up his XBox. He was in the back room talking to someone. This baffled Dr. Moroose. "Who are you talking too?" His grandson listed off several names and continued to talk and interact with his XBox and numerous friends for 3 hours.
Is our education system and ways of teaching slowing kids down? They are multi-tasking and decision making and interacting on such a higher level when playing things like XBox. Then we get them in a classroom and ask them to read a paragraph, spell a word, pick out subjects and verbs, answer an equation, each one at a time, on paper.. Do they feel like they are in slow motion when they enter the classroom and have to interact this way? Why don't we use technology similar to XBox to motivate learning?
They consider the various forms of non-written communication as some type of therapy or art, something that is not relevant to the everyday life of a student (Lucas, 2002). This is wrong. Learning to communicate visually and emotionally is an important form of communicating and very relevant in today's culture.
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References
Lucas, G. (2002). Interview by James Daly [Personal Interview]. Life on the screen: visual literacy in education. , Retrieved from http;//www.edutopia.org/lucas-visual-literacy
I like the analogy of learning in slow motion! Great article!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree about how video games and so forth promote social communication skills, but I also think that they can damage other aspects of the education process. I won't pretend to believe that video games cause violent behavior, but I would suggest that they promote distractibility. I have seen so many times, often first hand, how video games become a huge priority in students lives, to the point where it is practically impossible for students to focus on their academic studies. While I think that video games have the potential to teach a plethora of information, they should be viewed skeptically until further research is done.
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