In the domain of new technology and new media this view of children and childhood takes on particular prominence because children are often perceived to be making more sophisticated use of them than their schoolteachers. The consequence is that schools do not seem able to compete with the highly immersive, persuasive and slick new media environments that children experience in their own social and leisure time51.
“Learner expectations are changing, bringing new habits of learning from their world of communication and collaboration - powered, in part, by emerging networks of social interaction. Employers, eager to prosper in an innovation economy, require new skills from workers, and increasingly value people who, in addition to possessing core literacy and numeracy skills, can add creativity, collaboration, problem solving, and decision making to their portfolios. Independent, lifelong learning is fast becoming a prerequisite for effective skills development.”52
NEW MEDIA
Modern media organisations are acutely aware of this tension. For example, Cisco has produced a detailed report on ‘The Future of School’, which argues that children’s social interactions and skills developed online prepare them for a world of work which schools are not equipped to provide:
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While children are experiencing a highly seductive media environment outside school, in school new technology use is restricted, perhaps even considered banal by children as failing to keep up with cutting edge developments. In short, schools struggle to compete with the slick and professional presentations of the new media environment53.
50. Detailed discussions about marketing to children can be found in Schor, J (2004) Born to Buy: The commercialized child and the new consumer culture (Scribner), and Kapur, J (2005) Coining for Capital: Movies, marketing and the transformation of childhood (Rutgers University Press). Schor’s book claims there is evidence that more time spent by children on the internet or watching television heightens their materialism and worsens their relations with parents and their mental health 51. Accounts in this direction are provided by Veen, W and Vrakking, B (2006) Homo Zappiens: Growing up in a digital age (Network Continuum), and Willoughby, T and Wood, E (eds) (2008) Children’s Learning in a Digital Age (Blackwell) 52. Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (2008) The Future of School (Cisco Systems) 53. Discussed critically by Kenway, J and Bullen, E (2001) Consuming Children: Entertainment-education-advertising (Open University Press)
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