Wednesday, January 31, 2007
My Topic, Reading List, and Research Ideas~
Question
How is one’s education affected by spaces in his/her environment (outside of the classroom)?
1. In our time, students are no longer being educated simply in school and by their parents. They are bombarded with vast amounts of information every day regardless of their age through television, advertisements, the radio, the Internet, movies, music, music videos, billboards...ect... How does this mass media influence the beliefs and values in a society and the education of its young people?
2. How do these beliefs, values, and assumptions created by the media affect a person as a student? (their goals for their future; what they want out of their education/ what topics are studied/ the value that they place on what they are being taught ect.)
3. How do students utilize, analyze, and critique information that is shared over the Internet?
-Is there an ethical problem with teachers assuming that students know how to use/have access to technology?
-Should teachers be wary of utilizing the Internet since there is so much faulty information and things not appropriate for their students’ viewing?
4. Given the same environment and the same information what makes people extrapolate different meaning? Is it partly due to what they have learned from their different environments?
5. How can the effects of these spaces be studied and used in order to incorporate their strengths into the classroom and be used to teach information in text books in a more effective and up to date manner?
Research Plan
The first tools I will need are books and any other published research that has been previously written about the topic.
After doing background research using these sources I will probably need to look into experiences of actual students of all ages, possibly with interviews, surveys, or getting volunteers to keep a log of their experiences and follow the integration of their environment in their education.
Reading List Possibilities
1. Children and their Environments: Learning, Using and Designing Spaces - Christopher Spencer
2. Inventing Better Schools, Phillip C. Schlechty
This book relates directly to a topic we have been discussing: changing education for the new information age. As I was flipping through, I found a part that discusses educators’ need to handle the vast amount information Americans are exposed to everyday. It states: “If our educational system does not prepare the citizenry to give meaning to this information to create knowledge as well as to use and evaluate knowledge created by others, citizens will feel overwhelmed by the information they are receiving...censorship and sponsor boycotts are not the answer to this problem; quality education is the only answer available in a democratic society” (pg 39)
The fact that we are all of a sudden being exposed to so much information that shapes our education is partly due to of the globalization of mass media and the internet – which is part of my topic....Here are some sources I found to go along with it:
3. Teacher Education for Critical Consumption of Mass Media and Popular Culture, Stephanie A. Fores-Koulish
4. Media Reception Studies, Janet Staiger
5. Literacy in multimedia America, Ladislaus M Semali
6. A handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Asante
7. Cyber Spaces/ Social Spaces: Culture Clash in computerized Classrooms
8. Researching Children’s popular Culture: the cultural spaces of childhood
How is one’s education affected by spaces in his/her environment (outside of the classroom)?
1. In our time, students are no longer being educated simply in school and by their parents. They are bombarded with vast amounts of information every day regardless of their age through television, advertisements, the radio, the Internet, movies, music, music videos, billboards...ect... How does this mass media influence the beliefs and values in a society and the education of its young people?
2. How do these beliefs, values, and assumptions created by the media affect a person as a student? (their goals for their future; what they want out of their education/ what topics are studied/ the value that they place on what they are being taught ect.)
3. How do students utilize, analyze, and critique information that is shared over the Internet?
-Is there an ethical problem with teachers assuming that students know how to use/have access to technology?
-Should teachers be wary of utilizing the Internet since there is so much faulty information and things not appropriate for their students’ viewing?
4. Given the same environment and the same information what makes people extrapolate different meaning? Is it partly due to what they have learned from their different environments?
5. How can the effects of these spaces be studied and used in order to incorporate their strengths into the classroom and be used to teach information in text books in a more effective and up to date manner?
Research Plan
The first tools I will need are books and any other published research that has been previously written about the topic.
After doing background research using these sources I will probably need to look into experiences of actual students of all ages, possibly with interviews, surveys, or getting volunteers to keep a log of their experiences and follow the integration of their environment in their education.
Reading List Possibilities
1. Children and their Environments: Learning, Using and Designing Spaces - Christopher Spencer
2. Inventing Better Schools, Phillip C. Schlechty
This book relates directly to a topic we have been discussing: changing education for the new information age. As I was flipping through, I found a part that discusses educators’ need to handle the vast amount information Americans are exposed to everyday. It states: “If our educational system does not prepare the citizenry to give meaning to this information to create knowledge as well as to use and evaluate knowledge created by others, citizens will feel overwhelmed by the information they are receiving...censorship and sponsor boycotts are not the answer to this problem; quality education is the only answer available in a democratic society” (pg 39)
The fact that we are all of a sudden being exposed to so much information that shapes our education is partly due to of the globalization of mass media and the internet – which is part of my topic....Here are some sources I found to go along with it:
3. Teacher Education for Critical Consumption of Mass Media and Popular Culture, Stephanie A. Fores-Koulish
4. Media Reception Studies, Janet Staiger
5. Literacy in multimedia America, Ladislaus M Semali
6. A handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Asante
7. Cyber Spaces/ Social Spaces: Culture Clash in computerized Classrooms
8. Researching Children’s popular Culture: the cultural spaces of childhood
# posted by Leah @ 8:53 PM 
