Information society – ethical view

Communication through digital media has exploded the last years. And as a consequence of this I believe we communicate a lot more than we did earlier. It seems like we have got social networks and digital channels were there are few limits and no one to judge you. We update our Face book status and we are Twittering all the time, night and day, at home and at work, with the computer and with our mobilphone, and we even communicate in these channels when we are supposed to do something else, like listening to a speech, working with our studies or being at a party. Not long ago there was a big case in our district when a politician updated his Face book profile while he was sitting in a conference. This became a big story in the news because the politician used Face book to comment and to satirize with the speaker. A lot of people reacted on his publication; they were shocked and called it harassment. You can read more about this case in the link below.

stjordal.adressa.no - Moen mobbet på Facebook

The reason I mention this case is because I want to focus on our limits or shall I say lack of limits when we communicate on the Internet; so called netiquette. And I want to focus on the role we’ve got as grownups and models for our children. I’m afraid this case is common in today’s society, and I’m afraid that the majority smiles when they read about this case, because this is the Face book jargon. But I react, and I disrespect this politician. He is not aware of his role as rolemodel and I don’t think he is aware of what he really communicates. In my opinion he shows that it’s ok in the social networks on the Internet to write whatever you want, whenever you want and to whom you want. Is that what we want??? NO!!! At least not what I want!

Fortunately the society reacted in this case and I believe the politician had to apologize to the speaker in the end; but I’m not sure he regret…

As an extension to this case I want to focus on harassment in our digital schoolyard. A research shows that half of our children have been harassed on the Internet and is harassing on the net. Frightening, in my opinion, and very sad for all the children who is exposed for this. In the following link you can read (in Norwegian) about some advices to those who have been harassed on the Internet.

http://www.online.no/sikkerhet/trygg_paa_nett/hvordan_haandtere_nettboller.jsp

My intension is to get my own children and my students to understand that these problems and challenges are resolved with respect and ethics. The limits for right and wrong are the same in real life as in internet world. We can only express in Internet what we also manage to express face to face!

Below you can watch a Youtube video showing us, with an homorous view, about the netiquette in social networks.

Information society – educational view

As I said in an earlier post; we live in the Information society. An important activity is to create, distribute and handle information. Technology and computers are our tools in this work. We use the internet to search for new information and to communicate with our friends and family; we use the net bank to pay our bills; we post our letters and applications; we may shop shoes and hats, and we educate through this channel. I’m talking about all our daily activities. This implicates that everybody in today’s community needs to be digital.

Before I go on with the educational implications I want you to watch this fabel for Teachers made by Margaret and Susan Meijers. It's called "New Literacies for a New Age".

Does this mean anything for teachers today?

I don’t think we need to teach our students how to play games or how to participate in social networks on the internet. They know how to download music, videos, images etc., and they know how to upload and publish. I thought there was a great need for education about ethics and moral in networks and I thought that our children were irresponsible and immoral in their behavior on the Internet.

A research done by the Norwegian Media Authority shows that Norwegian children mainly use internet for three tings; entertainment, communication and getting information. It also tell us that our children are conscious about what they publish about themselves and friends on the internet and the research report says that today’s students have learned a lot about how to use the Internet safely. That tells us that there has been done something right in our community for the last years and 60% of the children in this research tell that the school has been teaching about safety on internet and about what’s illegal to do.

Anyway… we still got big challenges.

Today’s pupils are more or less extremely technical, compared to most of their teachers. But their brain is less developed than grownups and they don’t always know how to use their digitalism. A common problem in primary school is lack of critical reading and knowledge about how to use resources. Students today need education for Media Literacy to be able to analyse, evaluate and create messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms. The report from the Norwegian media Authority confirms that searching information is one of the most common activities on the internet. And also the only internet activity we allow our children to do at school.Our student’s google themes they work with and get thousands of matches they don’t know how to use. They are young, maybe naive and got little experience in reading resources. Our job is to teach them how to search more detailed, to tell them what a good resource is and to teach them how to use their recourses legal and critical. This has got to less focus in Norwegian school in my opinion. Our students hardly know what a plagiarism is and they have no idea about when their own texts actually are copies of other peoples work.

Now you may think that this is not a new phenomena and not a product of us being a part of the information society because using resources working out our tasks has always been done. And that’s right! But the big challenge in our ICT world is the enormous quantity of resources, the easy opportunity to just copy a text into our own document and the problem linked to discovering plagiarism when texts are written in the computer and the resources are countless.

In my opinion this is an important implication for our school today. Maybe you think it’s an old problem, but I still think it’s one of the most challenging areas working with infants today, and it’s important to gain critical and adult children! And finally; it's important that students learn how to use the resources of our age.

The report from the research called “Children and digital media 2010” is large, but I suggest you take a look if you are able to read and understand norwegian:)

Inspiration...

Information society – a cultural view

The most used medium in our information age is the Internet. That gives us the opportunity to search for information, publish our thoughts, participate in the technical world and to communicate in multiple ways. And as you can see, I call it opportunities. Not everybody has got that view, including my father who is about 60 years old. I’m not sure he is representing his generation, but I know he is representing a lot of persons when I tell you about his problem in this Information society and Internet world.

A major part of the Norwegian people is watching the local news and the national news in our national channel NRK every night. So is my father. It is a part of his culture; it’s his way to get the latest news, besides reading the local newspaper. But lately he has got a problem which irritates him reckless. As the news goes on they are announcing horrible, thrilling and meaningless happenings from the whole world. And so; next case; maybe a very interesting subject. But what happens? They are only presenting the subjects heading and continues with: “You can read more about this on www.nrk.no ; case closed. For my father this is completely hopeless. It makes no meaning for him, and he really doesn’t want to get introduced for news he can’t reach.

My parents has got Internet in their home, and my father use both e-mail and net bank. But “sitting” on internet, surfing and searching for information and being a part of net societies is just not something he does. It is not natural for him; it is not a part of his culture.

When it comes to his problem with NRKs marketing of their webpage in the best telecasting time my father just don’t want to understand why. For him is directly broadcasting of news definitely the best, and if it was his decision, advertising would be forbidden.

As I said earlier I don’t think he represent a special generation or age, but I am sure he do represent someone. And I guess we’ve got a big challenge getting these people an included part of our Information society our information culture.

INFORMATION SOCIETY

When creating, distribution and handling of information is an important economic and cultural activity in the society it is called an INFORMATION SOCIETY. The community of 2010 is an information society because technology, computers and free world trade matters a lot and because the whole world is our marked.

If we look at social or cultural relations we can define the information society as a society where people from all ages and all social ranks have got equal opportunities to get information. All information is available for everybody. Internet is a channel for international mass-communication with an endless numbers of messages and receivers.

But… There is a but…
Access or not access to the information net can also create a digital divide in the community, as well global as national. Whether you have access to knowledge and culture is important for your social title and your opportunities for exploring things. Our government has been aware of this danger and in December 2006 the department for administration published notification nr 17 called “An information society for everybody”. This notification is mainly about how to get all inhabitants digital included.

It’s good to see that the government shows their understanding for the information society we live in through this notification. Still I think we have a long way to go before everybody can participate in the information society. Statistics Norway tells us how far we have come. 88% of Norwegian households got computers and 86% got internet access in 2009.


An interesting question following to this is how we use our computers and internet access. Do we only participate in social networks or do we use our internet connection to communicate with the authorities? According to Statistics Norway 81% of the internet users connect the public authorities through their internet. This tells us that there is still a long way to go before we have got “An information society for everybody”. You can read more about this and other kind of topics associated to ICT and internet at Statistics Norway

ICT in education

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg11DmYDCnU&feature=email

Digging for the meaning...?

So far I'v been mostly philosophic in my blog and I've tried to make head of this blogging thing... Now I geuss it's time to start thinking seriously about our task in ICT 103.

More and more information, less and less meaning... II

I so agree on your comment on my last post Beata. We do live in media/ICT times and maybe it is possible to enjoy it. That was kind of my intention with that post as well. Maybe facebook and other network societies are more than simple entertaining. As a teacher I think it's interesting to see how people communicate in 2010. Our daily work at school is very much about communicating, geeting in contact with our students, reach them on their level. To do that we need to take part and we need to understand how this "ICT world" works. To be abel to give the students advices and support we need to be on the inside.

A resource in our classroom is about Literacy, which is the ability to read and write. That is, of course, elementary knowledge also in 2010. But is it enough? I don't think so. To be a social human beeing existing in the 21.century you also need other elementary knowledge. We need to learn how to read and create multimodal texts, which speaks with a verbal, visual and audiovisal language. And at this point I'm inspired of Beatas slide show about "Introduction to the concept of new literacies".

The last question in this post is; where is the connection between facebook and the fact that I think there is a need for New Literacies ? And my answer is; It is all about the way we communicate in 2010!

More and more information, less and less meaning…

I’ve just been on Facebook getting today’s “news”. A relative is watching a movie while she is eating kebab. A friend from childhood has been out walking in the scary darkness. Someone is announcing a party with a local artist next weekend. My friend’s sister is bored. A girl I know has got the flu. A man is announcing his divorce. An old roommate from studies is celebrating her sons 5.birthday and another old friend is SO tired.

And I think (today again) SO GOOD TO KNOW!!!

Tomorrow, and the next day and the next day… I’ll log in again and read the same meaningless bullshit that I really don’t want to know.

The reason?

Well… Is it only simple entertaining and updating?

Nesna University College

This blog is a part of my participation in a course on Nesna University College called ICT in society and work life. Through this blog I’m going to reflect about how ICT influence the social life. I’ll blog about issues I think is controversial, issues I find interesting, problems I feel strongly about and topics that I think need discussion. The thematic areas are the information society, the information society culture, educational implications about ICT and ethics in ICT. Some of my posts will be created in English and some will be in my home language Norwegian. A post starting in English has to be commented in English.

Get started!