I am sure that the discussion last week on technology has had many of us thinking about it. I know in my case, I am probably one of the most hesitant to use it, and I explained why earlier. I have worked with children for many years and I see so often that children just want to ignore anything educational in favor of electronics. Even a well done and entertaining educational game can be ignored in favor of something far less beneficial. After class last week though, Chris and I talked about technology and I have been thinking about my view on it and why I think this way. It is not that I think that technology is a bad thing, it is more that I don't think it's being used well. Is it being used in a classroom simply because it is something that should grab the attention of children? Is there anything we can do to make it more attractive to learn in a traditional way?
One thing that I thought about during the discussion was when Rajib talked about the short attention span that children have and how they don't pay attention to books. Why is that? Children often watch shows like Sesame Street during their developmental years, and for all the good things shows like that have done, they have also had a significant adverse affect. Sesame Street is filmed in a very specific format to keep the attention of children, and it is filmed in a formulaic manner, if you watch the show, the camera will change angles every five seconds, this is to make sure it is constantly changing and keeping attention. But what educators have found is that the five second camera cuts has encouraged children to develop an attention span of about five seconds; if nothing changes in those five seconds, children begin to lose attention. Now, early on in the development of a child, that's about all the attention that a child can muster, but what Sesame Street and similar shows really do is reinforce that five second attention span. Fast forward through life, and now focus on teens. Many of us watched music videos through middle and high school, and what I said about the five second camera changes holds true in music videos as well; the camera will change every five seconds. Again this reinforces that short attention span except later in life when a child should have developed past that.
The real point of what I'm saying in all of this is that the way we use technology is formulaic, it may hold attention by design, but do we really learn anything from it? I remember watching Sesame Street but in all honesty, there are very few things that I can actually remember about the show, which makes me question what did I gain from it? On the other hand I remember another PBS show and I remember a lot of things from, Reading Rainbow, a show that was canceled because it wasn't getting enough support.
Now, I think shows like Sesame Street can hold attention by design, but are there other ways of holding attention? I'm going to use Star Wars, Goodfellas, and Serenity as examples here. The three Star Wars prequels have tons of visual effects, but most people who grew up on the originals don't think the prequels are as interesting. If you didn't know this, but in the original three, George Lucas did not have full directorial control over the movies, 20th Century Fox didn't believe in his abilities to create, and as such there was always someone else there with some creative control, episodes 5 and 6 weren't even directed by him. On the other hand, the prequels were controlled completely by him. There was a review of the prequels that I watched a while back that detailed why the prequels don't hold attention as well, and part of it comes down to creativity. Not creativity in visual effects, but creativity in camera work. I will focus on the cameras during conversations, in the original trilogy, the directors were always using interesting visual angles that could convey feelings like helplessness (Han Solo in the Carbonite chamber) or power (Darth Vader at the top of the stairs during the duel in Empire Strikes Back), and whether we understand that this was intentional or not, it doesn't matter, because that's how we feel watching these clips. Contrast this with the prequels, an interesting visual example was done in the review that I spoke of earlier, three conversations from the prequels played at the same time along with the Carbonite chamber conversation from Empire Strikes Back, and this is a truly interesting comparison. All three conversations from the prequels take place from the same camera angles, and cut angles at the same time (remember the five second camera cuts from earlier? It's here too) while the Han Solo and Leia are doing all kinds of things that create interest. In this way, I would say that the Prequels don't hold interest because they don't have the creativity that the originals did.
In both Goodfellas and Serenity there is a complex film shot that I really want to bring attention to. I've talked a lot about this five second cut aspect and how it is designed to keep attention, but are there other ways of doing this? Goodfellas had a sequence in the middle of the film where the main character walks into the Cococabana club (I may be getting names wrong, it's been a while since I saw the movie), and you don't realize it while watching it, but it is one long cut of film. From start to finish, it is over two minutes long, much longer than five seconds. And during the entire sequence, the viewer does not lose interest. There is a similar sequence in Serenity at the beginning of the movie. I think most directors do shots like this to brag and show off their skills, and those of the actors, but it is an interesting contrast to the five seconds I talked about earlier.
Ok, I applaud you if you read all of that, but my point is that technology is used in a formulaic manner, and in the end, that doesn't teach as well as it could. If we really want to teach children, one thing that I think we need to focus on is what kind of stimuli we expose our children to. If they are taught by the TV and have this attention span hammered into their head, then can we expect anything other than children to have no interest in books? I, for one, have no intention of sitting my children in front of a TV, I intend on reading to them and encouraging them to do things that they will want to pay attention to. If we want to use technology in a classroom, find creative uses for it, don't just throw in a video because children will pay attention to it, because they won't. My Dad told me about when he was in American History in the 11th grade, and his class had to role-play the first and second World Wars, what about something low-tech like a table-top game that is tactile and hands on, different and memorable? If we use technology, it needs to be creative and well done, we can't just show Ken Burn's Civil War and then another documentary for the next war. Do something creative, imaginative, whatever it takes to make the material engaging and memorable, we want people to look back and know that they learned something while not thinking about how educational the experience was.
Oh, and if you're interested, this is the review of Star Wars I was talking about. It's long, and the reviewer can be offensive, so be warned. There are several parts, and there are reviews for episodes 1,2, and 3, the visual comparison of conversations is in the review for episode 3, I believe. This is part one of the Phantom Menace's review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
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