Monday, December 10, 2007

Contemplating a Name Change


This whole line of questioning that shapes my blogposts, that question of whether kids have a divide between their home use of technology and their school use, might actually suggest that I am a digital immigrant. The fact that I even perceive a divide there might suggest that I see technology as something that can be separated into social/educational use. I say all this because I've read another article (yes, another one), this time from the Annals of the Association of American Geographers from back in 2002. Gil Valentine and Sarah L. Holloway did a bunch of research in the English countryside and summarized it in their article, "Cyberkids? Exploring Children’s Identities and Social Networks in On-line and Off-line Worlds."

Here's an excerpt:
"Our empirical data shows that children’s off-line worlds are incorporated into their on-line worlds in four ways. First, some children’s on-line identities are direct (re)presentations of their off-line identities and activities. Second, even when children construct alternative identities on-line, these are often situated or contingent upon their off-line identities and peer group cultures, in that they are constructed to enhance their off-line identities or to compensate for perceived off-line inadequacies. Third, children’s on-line worlds reproduce off-line class and gender relations. Finally, the limitations of the technology children use and the economic and temporal realities of their everyday lives affect the nature and extent of their on-line activities" (313).

Hmm....maybe there IS NO Ed-Tech Axis. My goodness. What's a girl to do now?

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