On the treadmill this morning, I saw in the corner of my eye, a feature on “CBS This Morning” discussing an initiative to put tablets in schools for every student. I missed a portion of the segment, but caught the anchors discussing with the guest, how much this will actually help students. The guest talked about the ability to put all of the student content onto the device (YAY! Textbooks on an iPad!!!) so that they would have easy access to their curriculum. One of the anchors then referred to the device as the “iBabySitter” and wondered aloud about students being distracted from reading because they would have the device in front of them (you are more than likely reading this article from a device by the way). She was obviously worried that students wouldn’t be able to do “school” with this huge distraction in front of them and wondered if there was a way that they could secure the devices so that kids wouldn’t be able to look at horrible things like the Internet and email.
#ugh
As I said, I missed part of the segment but there were SOOOOOO many things wrong with this conversation on both sides. I would probably be distracted on an iPad I guess if I had to look at textbooks on them.
Then came a commercial break and I thought that they might stay on the topic. They didn’t.
In fact, they went to the next segment on how YouTube is creating a space so that creators of content can use it as a place to make shows and movies . It was an interesting conversation and it talked about the future of film and how YouTube is basically trying to create a new way of thinking about how we watch and create content. They are giving the space to “creators” for free, but obviously they make money from ad revenue. One of the people they interviewed is the creator of the series “Video Game High School“, and when asked what would he do if a studio came to him to ask to create a series for them, this is how he responded:
We’d say, whatever you offer us better be a sweeter deal than what we got going on right now because what we have is the best deal of all time. We have full creative control, we have a giant audience that loves what we do, and we can make whatever we want.
So…one segment is basically worried about how we “control” kids and their is fear and anxiety that they may go away from the “content”. The next segment celebrates the “future of entertainment” and shows the great opportunity that people have to make something they love, in the way that they love to do it, and make a living from it.
Is there no irony here? My hope is that more people start realizing that the way many people are doing “life” and succeeding, is the same way that we can do school.
