Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

7.26.11 | In an interview at KQED’s MindShift, author S. Craig Watkins says that despite tough economic times, teaching students, especially those in schools in low-income communities to use digital media, is more important now than ever.

“My concern is that as schools are now struggling with budget cuts, digital media and digital literacy is looked [at] as a luxury as opposed to a necessity,” Watkins told MindShift. “I understand the enormous pressure that teachers and administrators are under, especially in the public school system. But we need to build a more compelling narrative that digital literacy is no longer a luxury but a necessity.”

Watkins is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin who has written about the “participation gap” and the ways that black and Latino youth are embracing mobile technology.

Watkins says we already have evidence that mobile learning can be effective in the classroom in science, art and math. (He points to research from the Horizon Report (pdf) and Project K-Nect). He says digital learning opportunities can be particularly powerful ones for kids who are disengaged from traditional classroom learning, as too many kids in low-income communities are. 

And as ongoing work on digital literacy reveals, becoming adept with both the digital tools and the types of critical thinking that digital media foster is an imperative for young people if they are to advance in the labor force and become participating, active citizens.

Several weeks back we covered Watkins’ post about the passionate high school students he observed taking part in a summer workshop on game design in Austin, Texas. Watkins tells MindShift these experiences can help some students feel more connected to traditional learning.

“It gave them confidence, self-efficacy as learner,” he said. “They felt like they’d developed a new skill, but more broadly, it influenced their disposition towards learning and as learners.”

The problem, according to Watkins is that these opportunities are too rare and are not evenly distributed among all students.

“It’s clear that black and Latino youth are rarely afforded the educational opportunities to help them navigate the digital world.” Watkins told Spotlight in an interview last year. “And because the schools they attend have all but shut off access to social media, there are very few opportunities to have meaningful discussions in the classroom about the responsibilities that come with life in the digital age.”

Despite research showing that youth of color are more likely to go online via a mobile phone than any other group, and that minority groups are more likely to use new social networking tools like Twitter, how youth of color engage with digital media create some cause for concern.

In another recent post on his blog, Watkins says youth of color are using these technologies and tools in ways that may be less likely to encourage the development of sophisticated digital skill sets and literacies. He argues that students need more assistance in building skills that get beyond texting and posting to Facebook to become “architects of their information environment,” as the students in the Austin game design workshop did.  Watkins says that successful schools of the future will be the ones that give kids opportunities to create with digital media.

Watkins tells MindShift that his future research will focus on the civic potential of new media tools—in this case, using technology to improve their own communities.  In addition, along with cultural anthropologist Mizuko Ito, Watkins will be leading a new effort to examine how students from low-income communities are navigating the digital world. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, the team will be conducting a national survey along with case studies of students in Austin, Boulder, southern California and London.

Watkins argues no young people can survive in the digital world without adult support and “scaffolding of rich learning experiences.” This is the danger of the myth of the digital native, he says.

While a greater diversity of young people are using digital and mobile platforms than ever before not all media ecologies are equal.  Thus it’s very possible that if poor and working-class students adopt technologies like mobile phones in environments that do not offer adult engagement and scaffolding, the potential benefits in terms of learning and empowerment may not be realized.

For more read Watkins’ post “Mobile Phones and America’s Learning Divide.”