Think back to the posters that you created in class. Pick one of them that seemed most relevant to you and tell us what you think about the topic of the poster.
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The poster of the group that dealt with practical question number six was most relevant for me. In my opinion it reflects the importance of this course, because it shows how easily new media and technology can be mistaken. Additionaly, it implies some standard oppositions that can be argued.
The group chose to put the quotation that their discussion (poster) was about on top of their poster. Furthermore, they put a hypothesis in the center of the poster, saying “What if computer skills and media technology were the most important things to learn in school?”. Around this hypothesis they wrote 3 positive, 7 negative and one neutral headword.
As I already stated in my introduction I think that the poster has a way to negative tone towards computer skills and media technology. We have learned so far that there are certain dangers and shortcomings, but most of them can be simply solved by the acquisition of media competence. If you know how to use the possibilites those technologies offer properly, you can make use of a lot of advantages.
To give an example: The group wrote friends with a question mark and asks if there was social contact and competences any longer if their hypothesis were true. This critical view on communication is a frequent misapprehension. New media, especially E-learning, does not lead to an isolation of the people. It makes simply use of other, more modern forms of communication such as e-mails, message boards and chats.
At the same time I think that the poster shows that the given statement could be easily mistaken. I interpreted it totally different. Of course it might be that I’m wrong, but I want to give you an insight in how I interpreted it:
The surface message might lead to a critical view, but I think that this study/those teachers just wanted to make clear the importance of computer skills nowdays. All your scientific knowledge will lead you nowhere and will therefore be useless if you weren’t able to handle a computer to publish it in the future. The development of new technologies comes about pretty fast, no matter if you care for them or not, but you simply have to care if you don’t want to loose but use your abilities and knowledge in the future.
Hey Tanja,
I think you are right concerning the importance of computer skills nowadays.
Especially we, the future teachers, have to care about our skills on the computer, or else our future pupils will teach us how to use new media properly and not vice versa.
By: valentinasuess on November 12, 2008
at 9:23 am
Dear Tanja,
when I was reading the first lines of your blog entry, I was just thinking that on the one hand we have both the same opinion, because for me, this poster also was the most relevant one, and on the other hand, I was surprised that you have a totally different opinion about the statement itself. I liked the way you explained your point of view and that you gave examples. Especially for me, it was pleasant to read this entry, because you manged it to come up with arguments, so that even I changed my opinion after reading your entry.
By: yesilmencihan on November 12, 2008
at 9:30 am
Hey Tanja,
I really like your critical reflection of the poster. Actually, I was in the group and I have to admit that we did not really know what we could do with this quotation at first. Then, we decided to imagine what it would be like, if the most important thing to learn were media skills. Of course, we exaggerated so that the tone of the poster became quite negative. Therefore, I liked that you gave some thoughts to this topic and stated your own opinion instead of taking the easy way and agreeing to our arguments.
Go on like this!
Jaana
By: jaanastolp on November 12, 2008
at 9:34 am