Today in class we engaged in a media literacy and critical thinking challenge: Create an informative one-sheet to explain the course concepts to new learners. Our task was to harness our collective knowledge stemming from course reading, discussion, and viewing, and translate the article The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World published by the Pew Research Center into a one-sheet using layperson's language appropriate for high school students.
"A plurality of experts say digital life will continue to expand people’s boundaries and opportunities in the coming decade and that the world to come will produce more help than harm in people’s lives. Still, nearly a third think that digital life will be mostly harmful to people’s health, mental fitness, and happiness. Most say there are solutions"
Students were divided into three teams that tackled the three overarching sections of the piece: Technology as more helpful, technology as more harmful, and potential future remedies related technology and digital innovation.
The Steps:
- Explore assigned sections alone and identify key takeaways. In small assigned groups, come to a consensus on key takeaways, refine them into the most accessible language for the intended audience
- Clarify the desired impact of the one-sheet.
- Identify relevant quotes and/or data to incorporate into the one-sheet.
- Create a catchy headline for the one-sheet
- Choose one of the info-graphic templates posted on Moodle -- Use your chosen template to pull everything together for public presentation.
The Results:
What resonated with you most in this article, CM3940? Chime in the comments...
I connect with the quote "Being online affects the way you think, work, and the way you feel about yourself" because I totally agree, being online has affected my focus tremendously, whether it be my focus with my school work or my focus with my job. Being online, I get texts, emails, and all kinds of different alerts on my phone, and especially when I am trying to focus and do my homework I lose my focus so easily because I go to look at that one alert and before I know it, I am scrolling through Facebook, or watching snap chat stories. I have been trying really hard lately to focus harder and not let myself get distracted with my phone, and the only thing that really works is if I put my phone in the other room, so that I am not tempted. Also I connect with being online affects how you feel about yourself, because I will get jealous sometimes when I see all my friends out having fun at parties, and I am stuck at work, it makes me sad. Or when I see how pretty some other girls are with all their pretty pictures online and how many likes they get, I noticed that it made me feel a little self-conscious. It is crazy to think that being online can change how you feel about yourself, or how it can change your life so much.
ReplyDeleteThe term "The Connection Machine" is something that resonates with me a lot. Across different websites, I find myself connecting with a lot of different people. On one site, I connect with my friends and keep up with our lives and what we're up to, on another, I follow fellow gamers and eSports athletes in the events they go to, the developments they are making as players, and bonding over our common interests in games, on another, I resonate with other artists over visual, photo manipulation, written, and other forms of art, and then there is my professional network where I follow other business figures, alongside aspiring ones such as myself and other college students.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the internet has opened many doors for my life when meeting new people and making new friends, no matter the type of interests I'm looking for. As long as I am on the right website, I'm sure to find a small group to connect with and show empathy. However, there are those arguments about how it can hinder communication skills and how you work, but I think finding a balance of getting out and meeting people around you and then networking online can put those warnings at ease.
The more technology develops, the more networks users will find and meet more people. And maybe eventually it'll get to a point where it won't hinder our skill sets as much, too! Only time will tell.
I think it is interesting that only a third of the people believe the online world is harmful. That means people are noticing changes that are happening to themselves. I believe the real question should be is what people are going to do about it. I think that most people understand that they are going through these changes in their daily live but that they just refuse to see the signs and instead just ignore and move on. I believe people act in such a manner because they want to wait until something bad happens to them personally. This quote speaks volume “humans need tools. Humans need and want augmentation. And as the saying goes, first we make our tools, then out tools form us”.
ReplyDeleteAnother piece that questioned, my thinking is that we love to build these connections in the digital life and understand there are some consequences that come with it but that we need to better understand consumption. Management is the key to it all, but people have become so attached and dependent on it and that is when we have all the problems that are spoken of. I believe that if we have self-control and confident in our ability to be productive even in our down time we won’t have all these “deadly issues”.