Music Albums: Down in a "Blaze of Glory"

Jon Bon Jovi told the London Sunday Times magazine that iPods and other digital mediums have destroyed the business, saying, "Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like…God, it was a magical, magical time. A generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' “ He added, “Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."

Jobs actually saved what was left of the music industry by helping artists find a way to monetize what was left after illegal downloading nearly finished it off. Though digital technology finished killing off the music album of our beloved past, it certainly didn’t start here. Remember making mixed tapes for your friends and lovers? “Theme” tapes were popularized in the 80’s when recordable audiocassettes became widely available. Couples would pull their albums off the shelf and select songs that helped them express how they really felt for that special someone. Others would make party tapes of the greatest hits, recording off the radio, off other tapes, and of course off vinyl albums. My brother would argue that the gleaning of thematic or top-rated songs from albums happened even earlier in time, as his friend’s father was a D.J. in the 70’s and used his reel to reel machine to create mixes, but notice I’ve used the word “popularized” to describe the recording of mixes in the 80’s, as production of this blank recording media took off.

In Canada, recording artists demanded that the government add a special surcharge to each blank tape sold, called a Private Copying Levy that is set by the Copyright Board of Canada and currently collected by the Canadian Private Copying Collective. Still, music lovers everywhere abused, and continue to abuse the privilege to make a personal private copy of their albums. CD ripping and digital file sharing has just amplified the “pick and choose” landscape that had already begun with the proliferation of making mixed collections on blank cassette tapes.

Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the old music album of our youth. Can you genuinely name a recent album that has come close to the ones we worshipped way back when? I’m not knocking today’s music. I just think we’ve entered a new era of “singles”, “doubles”, and maybe if the music is hot enough, “triples”. So, what did those long albums have back then, that others today don’t? Two of my favourites, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love both tell stories throughout their albums. This single narrative weaving its way through the entire album had a cohesiveness that would have been sacrilege to separate. But, do today’s youth listen to albums the same way we did? Research shows more than ever, that youth are prone to flipping through music, often not even finishing a song before going on to the next. The music trough is so full and the market so saturated with choice, that when you combine the wide availability with the way hyper-mediated youth switch their attentions so much quicker than we did, the dying of the music album seems like an obvious end.

So, what’s left then? The simple answer is the consumptive experience. Bon Jovi is just going to have to get used to hitting the road for more tours, ‘cause that’s where the money’s at.

Teachers as "in-service Researchers"

I presented my research on teens and cell phones at an Education and Technology conference back in the Fall, outlining issues around compulsion, stress, multi-tasking versus task-switching, education, and social relationships. In the trade show exhibition room, following my presentation, I bumped into a fellow teacher colleague and asked about his experiences so far at the conference. He gave me a run down of his morning and his friend joined in and offered his opinions on the seminars he had attended. The friend mentioned that he had sit in on a presentation by a Masters student who had presented her thesis. He complained that it wasn’t anything he could use in his teaching. I noticed a slight twitch in his face as he realized that I was the Masters student (and teacher) he was talking about, and so he quickly added in, “she did a good job presenting, though”. And herein lies the problem. Teachers are still in the “tell me what tools to use and show me how stage” when they need to be at “how should these tools be used effectively, what are my expectations, and what outcomes can I project from using this technology”? Along with “does this tool help me stimulate critical inquiry and collaboration in my classroom”?

Maybe teachers expect academic sociologists to be on top of all the research so that those in the classroom don’t have to think about their selections. It’s an extremely strange and troubling stance to take, as teachers are the ones who are immersed in the classroom on a daily basis and know the way each of their students learns better than anyone in some academic lab. That’s not to discount the value of sociologists. They are an extremely valuable and necessary part of our team, rather I am working to establish teachers as valuable members of this team, as well. So does it not make sense that all teachers should become “in-service researchers” and ensure there is reflection and critical thinking in their own practice? Does it not make sense that they would share their findings with their colleagues to help support and form an effective educational learning framework, a.k.a professional development? And worse still, do teachers who want to be handed the tools actually think all of this emerging technology has been researched in advance to ensure optimal learning environments? Often what we are doing is re-purposing web applications that have been born with business productivity or entertainment in mind. There is little monetary value in developing educational applications so we are left picking through the pile of emerging apps. Again, even more reason to use an “educational filter” that calls on our knowledge of the science of learning when selecting appropriate tools.

Quit Blaming the Technology!!!

I work in education, an area that is slow to roll with the times of change. Technology has become ubiquitous in the lives of our students, as youth continue to embrace mobile technologies. Yet, there are many educators who just want to shut the door on technology, claiming that it is too much of a distraction. Common are the complaints about texting at inappropriate times, teen compulsion to stay connected 24/7, and the disruptive nature of incoming calls and texts… and the complainants are absolutely right. It is disruptive. There is no disputing that. But we need to ask, “why is technology disruptive?”

The shorter answer has its beginnings in big businesses’ quest for ultimate productivity carried over from the turn of this century when it was thought that multi-tasking meant more work would always get done. The longer and more pertinent answer to the question at hand is that technology is not being used for its greatest benefits because adults haven’t been around to guide youth in setting boundaries and defining good purpose for use. We’ve left youth out on a limb to discover possibly the most life-altering evolution of their lives all on their own. This, at a time when McLuhan's description of technology being extensions of the self has never had more resonance.

Technological determinism does not happen in isolation. Human beings have the opportunity to mold technology just as much as technology has to mold us. Teachers need to help set the parameters for use by embracing technology, teaching good purpose, and modeling appropriate use both academically and socially.

Groundhog Day

My head is spinning this morning as I think about how to keep course work organized, relevant, accessible, organized and engaging for my students. I’ve tried numerous platforms out there from free online web 2.0 apps to sponsored education sites and apps. As I migrate my material to different platforms and sites, I feel my frustration mounting. Betas are dropped, apps are modified or commercialized and I’m left scrambling looking for the next best “fit”. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Groundhog Day.
I started using Ning last year because students love social networking. They enjoyed being able to comment on each other’s work and posts. They spent a good deal of time making their own page individualized and personalized by choosing their own page formats, colour schemes; adding videos, photos, and audio of their work. The live chat feature came in handy when I was absent in Boston. I was able to converse in real time with students as they worked on the tasks and video tutorials I had left on the site. I even linked to my Google Docs and calendar. Then Ning commercialized their site and I was lucky enough this year to get a sponsorship from Pearson for a “mini-plan”. Now I can’t create groups, post videos or music, students can no longer use their Facebook account to access the site, and I have to approve every single blog they write. I don’t have 500 dollars from my budget to open this back up to the capabilities that come with a full membership. So I started checking out other sites but then ran into the same sort of problems as these sites worked to monetize their services. It seems like there are roadblocks wherever I go.
I use Google Groups for some of my personal learning networks and for collaboration. Unfortunately, Google is taking out the page and file capabilities this January. I stumbled upon the Google Notebook, which allows for the placement of notes in a linear fashion but also uses labels as cloud tags for those who prefer being hyperlinked. It also linked in with Google Docs and Presentations, but Google took away the sharing capability of Google Notebook and has stopped support for the project.
There’s got to be a working formula some where for education.

Google Earth-Not Just For Geographers

Oh, the possibilities.

Moving beyond Web 2.0 into augmented reality. That's what Google Earth does. But it's not simply useful for creating tours and viewing the world. It can be used for digital story telling, portfolio building, and social awareness projects.

I had the opportunity to present at ECOO some of the story-telling projects I've been working on with my students. Afterwards, we collaborated on ideas for even more projects. I added those ideas, along with some tutorials and links to helpful sites to my PowerPoint presentation to share with other teachers. Here's the link if you would like to download it.

Cellphones in the Classroom: A Response

Recently, I responded to concerns about cellphone use in the classroom that a member of one of my Personal Learning Networks at Classroom 2.0 had posted. I've re-published my response here on my blog.

This is the post I responded to:
"I think cell phones don't belong in the classroom. They are a major distraction and are not worth the trouble they can cause. How can you regulate a student's personal cell phone? How can you keep them from texting each other and help them to remain on task? What do you do about students who don't have cell phones? How will they participate? What happens to their self esteem when they don't have a cell phone to pull out with the rest of the class? What about the students with really nice phones? How do you keep them from getting stolen? I could go on and on... cell phones in the classroom are not a good idea."

Here's my response:
We can't forget that cellphones are powerful mobile mini-computers. There is a period of normalization that occurs with any new technology. We need to guide students through digital citizenship and appropriate use. We also need to get to the point in which students are self-regulating, which means some initial guiding and regulation on our part as teachers working with students. I guess what we have to ask ourselves is "do we want to pretend we don't know students are texting behind our backs anyway" or do we want to be open and find an opportunity to teach them appropriate use and guide them towards self-regulation by helping them manage their attention?

Try putting students in groups when not all your students have cell phones. You'll find the "haves" are willing to share with the "have-nots" during this time as many have data plans (though you should never insist on sharing and I can bet it would be a very rare case that someone objects anyway). This way everyone gets an opportunity for deeper learning, instead of no one. Working in groups of 3 or 4 is great. If you're worried about the self-esteem of the ones who don't have phones, it's not like they don't already know who the "have" and "have-nots" are. I remember back in high school when many of the girls around me were wearing designer clothes and I was wearing regular clothes. It's a life lesson they've already learned.

I've actually never had a cell phone stolen in class before. When they're out in the open, it's pretty obvious which phone belongs to whom and kids rarely let them out of their sights. Though yes, it is a potential problem and you would need to share those risks with your students.

Right now students are texting with their phones because it's a great tool in their social world, as they look for ways to keep adults out of a space while they work to find their identities. They engage in shifting social circles as they try to establish long-lasting friendships like the ones we now have in adulthood. I have spoken with students who feel pressured by their friends to text back immediately upon receipt. They get into a dangerous cycle of compulsion that is full of internal interruptions and social pressure. This is very different from how adults use texting. We can take our time getting back to people without feeling quite the same stress. As teachers we can try to get rid of the external interruptions in their environment but they will find ways around it. Controlling their external environment by banning cell phones does nothing to quell the internal interruptions that take place in the head, repeatedly popping up and reminding them to "take a look at that screen" and check where they stand in each other's friends' lists.
In order to address this issue and help kids control their compulsion, we need to teach them how to become autonomous.

In order to address this issue and help kids control their compulsion, we need to teach them how to become self-regulators and how to engage in appropriate social etiquette. This can happen through allowing use at appropriate times during class, guided by helping them manage the type of attention required of the task at hand. We do this through adult guidance, attention cuing, mentorship, and teaching digital citizenship. You can't teach these when you ignore what they're doing anyway and your risk putting yourself outside of their world.
I produced a 37-minute documentary on this topic for my Masters. I interviewed David Buckingham, author and Director of the London Knowledge Learning Lab; Danah Boyd, author, Berkeley fellow and researcher for Microsoft and Harvard; Linda Stone, retired Executive from Apple and Microsoft; Dr. David Meyer, Psychology professor at the University of Michigan; and Neil Andersen, author, media consultant, and speaker with the Association for Media Literacy. I also interviewed teachers and school administrators, parents, and most of all..teens. You can view some of the clips from my documentary at www.janemitchinson.ca

The Importance of Teaching Digital Citizenship

The story out of Vancouver this week about visuals of the gang rape of a teen-aged girl being passed around Facebook and cell phones was so horrifyingly sad. The speed of transfer of information can seriously amplify situations when teens are not taught digital rights and responsibilities. We have to remember that it's not the technology that's the problem, it's the use of the technology. The user's values dictate the way a medium is used. This is why we need adults to be present in teen social space as guides. We can do this partly through the implementation of a mandatory digital citizenship and literacy course in all our schools. Teens need adults who are available to them and can be trusted to act on their behalf.

I do not advocate for complete invasion of teen social space, but we need to have a presence. This is a very delicate balance since teens need some of their own private space to practice socializing within youth circles and for finding their identities. If they feel adults are encroaching too far into this territory, they will look for alternate spaces to keep adults out. That's what made texting among youth popular in the first place.

The lack of empathy and humanity these youth showed is heart-breaking. The keen interest and voyeurism displayed over such a violent act -alarming. We have to ask ourselves what society will look like in the future if we fail to find the delicate balance of adult presence in teens' online and linked worlds.

Questions from Teens

Great discussion is being generated in class with all the media buzz around cell phones in the classroom. I took the opportunity to discuss texting with one of my grade 11 classes, asking students to think about the fears around teens and texting and to frame questions around those fears. Here's what we discussed:

"Is texting really making us become more anti-social?"

Texting is actually quite social. In fact it's hyper-social. Teens are connecting with each other around the clock and staying more connected to each other than ever. Adults worry when teens go off to their rooms and text because face-to-face interaction with them drops off. Adults equate your physical absence with anti-social behaviour because they have learned to be social by being physically present. They are worried about being kept outside of your social space. Spend some face-to-face time with your parents every day.

"Won't we have a harder time communicating face-to-face?"

Just because you are communicating less face-to-face doesn't mean you'll forget how to do it. It's just another form of communication that you can choose from. That means you'll need to assess the most effective way to get your message across when communicating. For example, teens enjoy using sarcasm with each other. That's difficult to read in a text. You're probably already reserving that for face-to-face interaction.

Some teens I interviewed during my documentary said they use texting to help them think about what they want to communicate when responding in a difficult situation, instead of acting impulsively. This can be a benefit in preventing a situation from escalating, however, teens do lose the opportunity to read body language. Sometimes what we say or write isn't exactly how we feel. Teens need to think ahead about the possible outcomes of using each kind of communication before they engage in a difficult conversation. It's not much different than before cell phones when teens used notes to express themselves instead of dealing face-to-face. Teens have already been negotiating between written forms of communication and face-to-face.


Another question that came up was "is texting ruining our ability to spell correctly and use proper grammar?" The response will appear in an upcoming post.

Cellphone Use in Classroom topic on a roll

I rushed to the CTV studios right after school yesterday and did the taping for Province Wide. I was 15 minutes late after getting out of the building and then finding on my drive that Wellington Street was closed. I was a little frazzled but managed to shake it.

Daiene asked me what I thought about banning cell phone use in schools and I explained I felt it was sad that some boards that ban the devices are missing out on opportunities to teach students about appropriate use. We chatted about parents who don't know how to set boundaries as role models for students and how students need to work through their compulsion so they don't end up like the generation before them. What a great opportunity for education to guide them through this. By the way, Daiene's cell phone went off during the taping and we had to re-start a question. Her daughter needed a ride home and I had probably kept her later since I came in a little late. It really wasn't her fault, but it was still pretty funny.

After supper, my husband showed me a news post on the Internet that Premiere Dalton McGuinty had been asked by Toronto reporters what he thought about cell phones in the classroom. The Toronto Board had just announced it had decided to review its cell phone policy. I immediately thought, "Yeah Neil!" Neil Andersen, who appears in my documentary is a retired media consultant for the Toronto Board of Ed. I was so glad that people were starting to talk about the issue. It's been a long time coming.

This morning I was surprised to see a negative backlash to what McGuinty had said. All he had said was that schools need to help students find appropriate use for ell phones in the classroom and that we need to consider a place for them. That's exactly what I had been saying Tuesday morning. I guess the fear-mongers ran with that one and attacked him for not considering the distraction of cell phones in the class. It's strange how people can twist things out of proportion because bringing them in to class is what we needed to do in order to deal with the compulsion to be on call. I wish people could see my documentary so they could understand the issued a lot better.

Before lunch, I got another call from the office that the CBC had been trying to get a hold of me again. CBC's radio syndicate requested 11 interviews for between 3 and 6 PM. I'm so glad I got up early this morning to write down some of the counter talk I could expect from people. It came in handy on the circuit. Some interviews went easily with talk show hosts that were open to the issues, but a couple went much tougher with the announced out in Halifax calling himself a curmudgeon and David Gray calling me crazy. I think David was just upset because I caught him on one of his own points. He said that teens shouldn't have cell phones in the classroom to use as tools because it's unfair to the ones who don't have them. I said it was an easy fix and that I had never had a problem with it. Students work in groups and the ones that have them are quite happy to share. He asked me if I really thought it was okay to ask the kids who have cell phones be asked to share with the ones who don't. I explained again that the haves are quite willing to share with the have-nots if you ask them, it's not a requirement. The haves don't mind sharing their phones while working in groups and don't see it as a big deal. It's all in how you use them in class and that's something the teacher can set up with the students; is how and when to use them. David asked "isn't that drawing a line between the haves and the have-nots? Shouldn't we level the playing field?" I said, "Are you saying that students should miss out on deeper opportunities for learning just to level the playing field when teachers can create equal learning opportunities through putting students into groups? He quickly changed the question.

There's several more points I made through 3 hours of talks. The battle with David Gray really stuck out because he challenged me. I have taped some of the interviews and will go over them to accumulate some of the issues that were raised and post them later. I also want to write about the questions my students had for me today. We had a great discussion on the fears that people have around texting. I could tell they had been sitting around the supper table talking with their parents about it. Great questions included: "is texting making us become more anti-social?" and "is texting ruining our ability to spell correctly and use proper grammar?" I will save these discussions for the next post as this one is getting quite long.

Texting and Teens Generates Interest

As I drove away from the CBC battling Toronto traffic to get back to the Waterloo Region, I felt a huge sense of relief. My documentary got handed in on time to Ryerson with my bound paper and I had a great time visiting friends and celebrating the end of my work. Appearing on Metro Morning and the provincial morning show felt like the wrap-up.

About a half hour after I'd arrived back at Waterloo Oxford I got a call from the office that CTV had been trying to get a hold of me. I was asked to appear on Province Wide for the coming weekend and reporter Frank Lynn asked if he could come out to the school to do a story. I made plans to tape Province Wide today right after school and asked for an extra day to get media releases all organized from the students so that we could be ready to have CTV come in Thursday.

I don't have the questions for Province Wide, but I have a feeling they're going to be around cell phone policies. Diane mentioned that my talk on CBC around trying out with students that they keep their cell phones on and out in the open intrigued her.