Blog #3

The Key Findings seciton of the Geration M2: Media in the lines of 8-18 years did not surprise me at all.

One thing that I really liked in general about the article was the fact that the authors had used actual datum and statistics to explain their finding. Being a very visual person when it comes to numbers and figures, the charts and graphs were a nice tool to keep me interested, and actually SEE the results, rather than just read about them.

Parental, student, and teacher responsibility came to mind. Initially, I wanted to put everything on the parents. They are the one's who purchase the cable, internet, and mp3 players, they should have some kind of control.

After some reflection, I realized that a student's education is in the hands of everyone: teachers, parents, and most importantly themselves. Teachers are important because they see their students everyday, they (should) know their students well enough to know when they are tired, and when they are not acting to their potential. One way teachers can combat the media use is to give media based assignments. For example: watch this on TV tonight, read this article online, listen to this mp3 on your ipod or computer and be prepared to talk about it in class.

Parents need to be involved in their students' education as well. If not, it puts the stress on both the teacher and even more so, the student. Parents can do many things to limit TV and computer activity. Students love to learn by example. As the parent, shut off, unplug, or even remove the distracting media and do something with your student. Read a book together, set the same reading goals and talk about everything you have read. The TV and computer can be great educating tools too. Watch an interesting show on the history channel, or find interesting articles and send them to your child. Children crave attention, and act out when they don't have attention.

Students have the most important role in being responsible for their own education. Teachers and parents can really help and influence the education, but students have the power to do whatever they choose. The choice to shut off the TV and get homework done should be something the student may not want to do, but chooses to because they want to better themselves and move along.