E-culture in school, a challenge or an opportunity?

Our society has changed both dramatically and rapidly when we think about the opportunities the use of ICT provides us. As grownups it can be a challenge to understand and take part in all the new possibilities that we have by surfing on the internet. As a teacher you meet these challenges every day in school. Some of the pupils have probably a lot more experience related to ICT than you as a teacher has. How does school cope with this challenge? Either you can ignore it, or you can take the technology and new types of communication serious. After my opinion the education system have to take the new ICT-generation serious and try to make use of the possibilities it gives. The most important job in school today is to educate the pupils to become skilled readers and writers. The ICT-society provides new types of literacy’s. If the pupils are going to find information on the internet, they have to both write and read at the same time. They have to be able to follow links and understand the structure of the website they are using. When they use the internet, they are no longer just consumers, but very often producers too. This is because there are so many possibilities to act interactive by using digital media. You can participate in your own commercial or you can for example get advice from the “psychologist” Eliza. It`s also possible to build your identity by making films, blogs, websites and so on.

The video below shows how easy it is to be "familiar" with famous persons.

It`s also possible to share your work with other pupils from schools all around the world. The e-culture opens up for more co-operation between pupils. The Norwegian system of education also has stressed the importance of making young people able to participate in the digital world. In the national framework (Kunnskapsløftet) the use of digital tools is mentioned as basic skills in every subject. As a teacher you therefore have an obligation in preparing the pupils to be participants in the digital world.

If we all know what we are doing, and why, ICT can be a way of communication and self-realization. The web is democratic. If you have the tools you need, everyone can be a part of the e-culture in space. In school we need to be an active part in the social and cultural development of the pupils and it`s necessary that we teach pupils how to behave in the interactive world. If the teachers and the pupils work together, I think both parts can benefit if we utilize the possibilities that use of digital media can give.

In this post I have tried to give you some ideas in which way it is possible to make use of  ICT to make new types of texts while working with pupils in school. It is important that the teachers are up to date in using digatal medias. There is no way back, so start working and go for it!

Do we always create more effective workers or pupils by using digital media?

Formerly when people arrived their working place they usually started to work immediately after that the working bell had rung. Their job lasted for many ours each day and there weren`t so many possibilities to have a brake during the day. How is the situation in our digitalized world? Mostly all of the workers or pupils in the school have access to the internet by using pc or a smartphone. We all know how easy it is to read papers, add to social communities or just surf on the internet when we rather should be working with something else directly connected to our job.

By watching this video you can decide by yourself if this is good behavior while working.



I think we all should be more critical about how we use the “new” technology during the working day. Some of the job leaders share my thoughts and they mean that the digital use among the workers is a large problem. The main reason for that is because it will steal working hours, and for a company it will become very expensive too. Some of the leaders have gone so far that they have threatened the employees with closing down parts of the local pc- network. In some companies there also have been discussed whether the employees should be allowed to use private phones during the day or not. In school we can see similar problems. There are pupils, and some teachers, that far to easy sneaks into “wrong” pages on the web instead of doing related work. As a teacher this tells me that the school has a big challenge in teaching pupils how to act in the real work life. There are so many positive elements and learning activities related to using social media in school that we have to increase our use of them in the future. I hope that the school will continue and be even better to take advantages of the digitalized technology, but we also need to have a discussion about how, when and in which way we are using it.

By watching the video below you can get information about how expensive "wrong" use of digital medias can be.  
                                                                                                                                                                    

If we use our phone or laptop when we are allowed to and become more critical for personal use while at work, then I will maintain that we have taken a step forward to create more effective workers and pupils.