Social networking sites, online gaming, and instant messengers are cool but isn’t there something else missing from the online universe? Despite the power of YouTube and Facebook, entertainment seems to be the only thing to come from them.
A pair of Rutgers University professors are trying to use these new technologies to teach as well as entertain.
“How can you teach in an environment when you cannot get anybody’s attention? That’s the challenge,” said Richard E. Miller, chair of the department of English at Rutgers.
Miller and his colleague, Paul D. Hammond, spoke about their vision at Duke Thursday during the Apple-sponsored symposium AcademiX 2009.
The program was centered around how technology has changed the world, especially the world of education.In their forum “The Center Cannot Hold: Living, Learning, and Leading in a Networked World,” Miller and Hammond talked about programs in which they are helping people learn to use technology for more than entertainment.
They teach classes in the Plangere Writing Center at Rutgers in which students receive hands-on experience with still and video cameras, going out into the community and the world to cover stories on global issues to share with the rest of the world. Their students learn how to develop and structure their videos, just as writers must develop and structure prose.
“How will you teach young people in a world that is in such sorry shape? That’s the challenge we face,” said Miller.
“We need to interrogate what we value in education,” said Hammond. It is important to know and understand what students need to learn and want to learn, he said. (Captain Trendo videotaping, photo by Joe Mabel)
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