MuseForJews

Teens are producing digital content

While this should come as no surprise to any of us who work with teens, a new Pew Internet and American Life Project report states that the number of teens who are producing digital content is growing at a significant pace.

What this means is that we really need to shift our thinking about “teaching the web.” Ten years ago our focus was really on teaching students to be web-users. Some of that is still – maybe more – relevant; certainly we still need to teach kids how to be critical information consumers, for instance. But it also indicates that we need to expand our teaching to include digital content as a product, not simply content to be digested.

I’m thinking about our annual film festival. When I started the event, oh 6 or so years ago, kids were still bringing in videos that had been produced using analog cameras. Last year I had no videos. Everything was submitted on DVD. Submissions included videos that had been recorded using camcorders and then edited on the computer as well as animations that had been created entirely digitally.

And, you know, this is with 6th through 8th graders…

So – what do you think? How do we expand our teaching from being web-users to being web-users/producers?

December 20, 2007 - Posted by Tktchr | Technology, What will be