Communication has fundamentally changed – as parents of teenagers know too well! On this blog I talk a lot about how parents must be current in your knowledge of the way your teens are communicating, sharing information and learning. And yet I appreciate, being from your generation myself, that the paradigm shifts that are occurring can be confusing and even intimidating. So, when I saw this video I was excited. Not only is the actual story it tells fascinating, but more importantly, it serves as an excellent example of the way the social web expands connections, collaboration and possibilities. This is the social web. This is a sea change. This is big. And this is your teenager’s world.

Even though parents are sometimes struggling to catch up with their kids’ use of technology, parents do value its use as a vital part of education. There is a PBS special titled Digital Nation coming up Tuesday, February 2 that will discuss parenting in the digital age, and will touch upon many of the topics I know parents are concerned about. The accompanying website Digital Workshops: Online Resources for Parents and Educators that takes the PBS special one step further with interactive surveys, resources and more. Renee Hobbs at Temple University’s Media Education Lab has once again developed an outstanding, informative and insightful resource for parents of teenagers.

Technology in education is one topic area that is a hot item for parents. If you are curious about its importance in your teen’s education, or unclear about how computers are used in the classroom, this video (from the PBS special) spells out the impact it has made in a middle school in a tough inner city neighborhood. The principal says “technology is like oxygen” to his students and by making it available he has turned his school around by almost every measure.

Be sure to watch the PBS special and view the resources at the website… it’s vitally important information for parenting kids in the digital age.

Jeff Bennett is a respected leader in the internet world,  Founder and COO of NameMedia, Inc.,  and a caring Dad. After several interesting discussions about the important role of digital media in children’s education today, I asked him if he would write a guest post which he kindly provided below. Thanks, Jeff.

We live in an era of rapid technological advancement for computing power, storage capacity, application development, proliferation of wireless networking, digitizing and indexing of what appears to be all information, and so much more.  All of these developments are bringing the cost of computing down.  These developments are enabling the advancement of complex research never possible before.  These developments are altering how we consume and process information for our work, education and entertainment.  These developments are also providing the largest interconnection of the human race since civilization began.  Pretty interesting times we are living in.

There is much to contemplate on how these developments will change society.  I think that the outcome to this question will be dependent on how we as a people “deploy” and “leverage” these advancements.   You can not turn back the hands of time and not accept that all of this is going on.  We must take an activist approach to understanding what is happening and how can we utilize these advancements in our lives.  We must manage this process or it will overwhelm us.

An area that I believe stands to be a huge beneficiary of these advancements is education.  I believe in a traditional curriculum that provides focus on the mastery of reading, writing and ‘rithmatic.  I also believe that these basics must be augmented with exposure and participation in the arts, sciences and athletics to build “well rounded” people.  This has always been the case but I feel it is even more important today.  We are citizens of an interdependent country and world.  This is where I believe technology can really play an important role in education.

There are three distinct areas that I belive technology can really advance education:

1.  Research and access to information. This is the core of all education.  I remember all those long days/nights at libraries searching for information for projects.  I remember my first view into Microsoft’s Encarta that brought the encyclopedia to the desktop with all sorts of graphics, video and links.  Look at what we have today with Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and the millions of web sites that publish and share content.  Sitting down at a computer connected to the web today gives the student access to some of the deepest libraries known to man.  It can be overwhelming…but rather than be overcome by this we need to embrace the tools that will help us manage the access to all of this information.  Can we turn our children loose on this?  No we need to teach what sites to go to, impose controls on the computer and get involved in this process.  The opportunity is limitless though.

2. Use of interactive tools to broaden learning. All of this information gives the teacher an opportunity to broaden the content used in the classroom.  The advancement of technology also offers many new tools for delivering the information and allowing the students to connect/touch/interact with the information.  This comes in many forms like smart boards, multimedia lectures/lessons, video demonstrations and so much more.  This past school year was challenging in the Northeast due to weather then the flu.  In my sons school he had teachers that were using their Macs to create video lessons/demos that the students could then access via the Internet/email.  There is so much opportunity for the use of interactive tools to broaden learning.

3. Connecting to the broader community through collaboration. My generation and my elders have broadly adopted email.  The generations that follow have adopted instant messaging and text messaging widely.  Most of these tools enable one-to-one communication for the most part.  Now we have Twitter which takes the simple 140-character messaging and allows the user to broadcast to their community of friends.   There have also been collaboration tools like Lotus Notes, Intranets and now “Wikis” that allow broad collaboration and communication for communities.  This is another key area for the advancement of education – to enable connection and collaboration with teachers, fellow classmates, researchers and students around the world.  I witnessed the power of a class using Twitter this past school year – it was a glimpse of the power of this kind of communication for learning.  Some of my parent colleagues were upset at the use of this technology.  We celebrate the innovation, creativity and groundbreaking work that these teachers demonstrated.  I hope to see more and more of this in the school year ahead.

These technology advancements are happening.  The tools are available.  Children are coming online in droves through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Text messaging.  The younger generations are more open to sharing information about themselves and open communication.  This can be good…but only if there is an awareness of “what” to share, “how” to share, and “how” to leverage the massive opportunities available.  Should we as parents embrace this or put our heads in the sand thinking that this will stop?  It can be stressful to work to get involved and then keep up.  Turning your head to avoid the stress is no solution.  I believe it is best to embrace these opportunities.  Work and interact with our children to understand what is available.  We will all learn ourselves.  I commend the teachers that are leveraging technology to advance education…and teaching children the right ways to establish their profiles and communicate.