Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
technologies ranging from classroom tools to broader institutional infrastructure
planning. Students are on the whole more comfortable with technology than their
teachers.
Before the advent of networked devices, students had little recourse but to accept
the content of a classroom lecture; NDM, however, provide students with tools with
which to challenge what the teacher says and does in real time. Cellphones and
networked computers in the classroom afford students a powerful portal to a grow-
ing compendium of knowledge relating to classroom curricula as well as NDM
themselves. Educators may find their knowledge challenged by students surfing
the web.
At times such challenges may be interpreted as a contestation of the authority of
the educator. Student investigations conducted outside of the classroom and then
shared with the educator for possible curriculum inclusion, however, are gener-
ally better received; they are considered as an indicator of authentic learning. One
physics educator with whom we spoke incorporated an online video a student found
into his lesson on electricity and conductivity; another educator relies on her web-
savvy students to update her on the latest Broadway theater news. While students
have long shared their informal learning with their teachers, NDM allow students to
find and share material more quickly and easily.
The affordances of network access in the classroom are often used by students
less to satisfy academic curiosity and more to socialize with peers. Before the pro-
liferation of networked devices, student sociality was very limited. Now networked
devices can also provide adolescents with a means to communicate with remote
parties—both locally situated and very distant—while ostensibly sitting in class.
Adolescents often engage in hypersocial behavior as they attempt to define who
they are; networked devices such as the Internet, cellphones with texting and IM
capacity allow students to continue interacting with friends regardless of context.
The pervasive use of these tools can distract students from tasks at hand; if unmon-
itored, assignments can turn into a collaborative effort with classmates, friends, or
random associates in an online chatroom.
Educators in our study report that girls engage in “persistent socializing” via
NDM and are subjected to increased social pressures in part because of the poten-
tial to stay in contact with peers digitally at any time. A drama teacher at a boarding
school finds that because of NDM, there are no longer any boundaries between
“home” and “school.” “Social networking feeds into social pressures,” he says.
“You can communicate anytime
if you make a social mistake you can make it
better with more social work 24/7.” Others mention that the typical student receives
social communications via NDM across multiple contexts, including at school. One
educator calls the ubiquitous interruptions a “method of peer-driven social control.”
...
Changes in the Student-Student Relationship
While the student-educator relationship suggests a shift in power in student's favor,
one facilitated in part by NDM affordances, the student-student relationship has no
