Frontline technology video questions

A Digital Nation- 90 minutes

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Growing up online- 56 minutes

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/

These responses are thoughts based on the two videos above:

1.      Your thoughts on multitasking.  Do you agree?  Can you multitask?  Do you disagree?

I think that we like to think that we are better at multi-tasking then we are. I have always prided myself on being good at multi-tasking, yet I find myself asking clarification questions in conversation if I pause to text. I also used to think having Facebook up during class was okay because it didn’t distract me, but I have learned that it does.

       I think that our society is almost forced to multi-task, so we have adapted to it. My mom used to check her text messages like she checked her e-mails, occasionally, and when she found the time. I remember getting mad at her because I shot her a quick question and she took ‘too long’ to respond. We constantly have text messages, e-mails, instant messages, Facebook posts, tweets. All of these Medias come in throughout the day. If you wait for too long to check these notifications, they build up. Students and just people have learned that if they keep updated throughout the day, they skip drudging through 100 e-mails at the end of the day. Also, if they are always connected then they can talk to their friends all the time as well.

2.     Is there an addiction happening in society today with technology or is it just a new way of living? Should we be concerned?

Yes, there is an addiction! This can be good and bad. I think that we will adapt to mold technology into what we want it for. 

       I have had friends “lost” to online gaming. I knew this kid that would sit in his dorm room all day and night and play W.O.W. He would miss class, he would miss meals, and he lived off of Doritos and mountain dew. He had scheduled raids at least 4 times a week, like the video. And he was emaciated. He looks very malnourished. He hadn’t had a girlfriend before, but while I knew him, he had a brief relationship on W.O.W. He was very awkward, and didn’t know what to do in social situations.  It is definitely an addiction. It is an ‘escape’ from reality, just as books used to be an escape from reality. I think that we need to balance the real world and the virtual world, but I don’t think the need to ‘escape’ is new; it just has a new medium.

3.      Do video games serve a purpose in education or are they a waste of time?

Please bring games into the classroom! That school sounded awesome! A school where kids learn what they need to know, it a medium that they want to use sounds like a win, win. In classes I see kids on their phones playing games, some educational! If this is what we are using then kids won’t sign and grown at the thought of class. They will want to be there.

4.     Do you believe that digital tools such as Google tools can save schools that are struggling?

Yes! Google plays a good part in my school that I’m a para at. All of the students have a Gmail account,they can save any work to their Google drive, and they can collaboratively work on the same document on different computers. Google is a huge contributor to education and if used properly can be a great tool in a school.

5.     Do parents of today have any idea what their kids are doing online?  Whose job is it to teach them safety and digital responsibility? Parents/Teachers/Community/Government?

       No, parents don’t know what their kids are doing online. Sure, they know their kids are on Facebook, etc. but they don’t really know all that their kids are doing. It is everyone’s job to educate kids on internet safety. That means, parents, friends, teachers, community, government, everyone! We should never try and just pass the torch to someone else on online education. There could be predators, viruses, cyber bullies, and scams that are hard to detect.

6.      Are kids and adults today ruining their digital footprints by sharing too much information online without realizing that it may be detrimental to their future? Should they care?

Depends, people do need to be careful of what they write online, because everything they say or do online is stored forever as data in servers somewhere. This doesn’t mean everyone, or even a lot of people are over sharing.

7.      “Stranger Danger” and predator fears are often overblown by the media on shows such as Dateline's “To Catch a Predator.”  What are the real dangers of technology in this day and age?  

       The real danger in this online age is under-education. Children should be taught to “cross the street” on the internet, just as you would teach a child how to cross a street the real world, you can teach them how to safely access the internet.

Share your overall reactions and thoughts about each documentary.  Please relate it to your views as a teacher/parent/coach/etc. What did you learn, find interesting, find disturbing, relate to, did not relate to, etc. that you would like to share with others?

I really like the gaming school. This was an interesting concept. I would love to teach at a school like that. I feel students would adapt to it well. I think the military virtualized experience is really fascinating, yet also terrifying. I think that most kids can tell what is real, and what is fake, but the virtual experience is desensitizing kids to the same feel of war. They won’t fear death as much in real life, because in a game they can always re-spawn.

       That teenager from the video that was addicted to gaming, the one that was sent to internet rehab. I think he was acting like a typical teenager. The ‘symptoms’  the mom was describing, was that of a teenager. Yes, he needed to stop gaming as much, but his attitude was hormones.

       I like the IBM second life meetings. I like how in the video they said; using a virtual meeting is a way of adding the human connection back to phone calls, and conference calls.

       In the Growing up online video, about the boy being cyber bullied and committing suicide is heartbreaking. It talked about the girl that was anorexic; she went on websites that worshiped the goddess Ana. I didn’t even know that this was a real thing. It makes me so sad. Then the video went on to talk about the dangers of the internet and the parents that had trouble adjusting to it. The one parent doesn’t get along with her son right now because of the way her son acted online, then the way she reacted to it. This video was kind of depressing overall.