Digital Media Buzz > But Mom, Watching Video IS My Homework

But Mom, Watching Video IS My Homework

By Rebecca Jacoby

More and more higher education institutions employ the Internet as a platform to reach and teach global audiences with curricula that include digital media: interactive presentations, streaming video and audio programs. It was only a question of time before digital media would become embedded into daily lesson plans in U.S. elementary and high schools.

Discovery Education has created a team to partner with school districts and integrate their digital content as a daily standard in all subjects. The team from Discovery Education will review and categorize more than 250,000 titles from its digital library. Part of that task will include determining how a district may best apply the content so pacing guides, scope and sequence documents and instructions must accompany the digital content in a format that will not only educate but appeal to students.

“Today’s classrooms are dynamic places, and teachers are continually challenged to spend as much time on instruction as possible,” says Dale Fulton, senior vice president of curriculum development, and team leader. He noted the value of matching relevant digital content to curricula to maintain a high level of consistency in instruction, promote educational standards and allow for measurable outcomes that show learning has occurred. “It helps transform traditional classrooms into 21st century-learning environments by providing teachers with an easy-to-use resource where they can find engaging, effective and appropriate digital materials.”

Take a peek at www.discoveryeducation.com and behold interesting, eye-catching resources and possibilities. Who wouldn’t want to learn with tools like these? With rich digital media choices, learning just has to be fun.

Undeniably, digital media is a consuming part of an adolescent’s life: about 40 hours per week, equivalent to a full week of work. About 96 percent of those adolescents engage in social media networking as well.

In fact, Scott Kinney, vice president of Discovery Education, had the opportunity to tell the House Education and Labor Committee in a recent hearing just how essential digital media should be. Taking advantage that his firm was the only content company represented at the hearing, he cited ways that technology is improving education and ways that children can and already are learning. He discussed how formal educational systems teach to one learning style, whereas digital media can reach children who learn in different ways —perhaps even motivate students to dig deeper into a subject on their own.

Kinney stressed the need for federal and state government support of use of digital media in the classroom. His recommendation to the congressional committee complete with examples of states currently using digital media in classrooms can be seen on YouTube.

Contrary to the benefits of improved learning options, consistent standards and ease of lesson planning are questions about Fair Use and copyright law, a gray area that the courts retain the right to specify but that seems difficult to enforce. As digital media usage increases, it may also be necessary to review the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Media.

Aside from Discovery Education, whose content is undergoing review, new job opportunities to develop digital media content open up. Full Sail University in Winter Park, Fla., currently offers an online Masters Program in Education Media Design and Technology.

A forerunner, the MacArthur Foundation joined the movement toward digital media and learning in 2006 with its launch of a five-year, $50 million initiative. How digitally adventurous is the Foundation? Well, in May it opened MacArthur Island in the virtual world, Second Life.

It seems that learning is happening everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzw9vykNydE&feature=channel

http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/ccmcguid.htm