A Portal to Media Literacy
An interesting take on the current state and future of education.
The problems we have in education are very similar to the problems that are plaguing other industries. Old models are simply not working in a “new” world.
Why teach our kids rote memorization skills when information is so readily at our fingertips? Why not teach more participation and less memorization?
Don’t get me wrong some level of memorization will always be necessary, but when most kids get precious little instruction on how to use the tools available to them then the gap in abilities grows wider and wider.
Now I’m biased as a media scholar, but we spend far too little time teaching kids to explore and critique the messages that they interact with most. If we embraced the technology available to us, instead of dismissed it as unimportant (e.g. TV, videogames, the web), then the lack of books and other materials would quickly become a non-issue because the content is already there just waiting to be tapped into with the proper connection and skill set.
