Vicky Rideout, Vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of the Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health, points out:

• Today’s young people devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day. This adds up to more than 53 hours a week, the equivalent of a full-time job.
• About half (47%) of media heavy users (more than 16 hours a day) report getting Cs or lower in school, compared to almost a quarter (23%) of light users (less than three hours a day).
• Half of the kids say that when doing homework they usually multitask by using some other form of media at the same time.
• The average student’s homework to internet time is 16 minutes of homework to 1.5 hours of internet.

Although children with any media rules consume nearly three hours less media per day than those with no rules, only about three in ten young people say they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV (28%) or playing video games (30%), and 36% say the same about using the computer. Child psychologist, Dr. Jennifer Hartstein recommends that parents disallow video chatting and TV watching while doing homework. For kids who don’t live by these limits, parents may choose to remove the offending media until the student is able to avoid distractions and make education the priority.

Another option offered by Rideout is for parents to use these findings to “look at what goes on in their own families … and talk about it.”

Applicants will focus on participatory learning experiences that incorporate the principles of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Participatory learning, as defined by the competition, is a form of learning connected to individual interests and passions, inherently social in nature, and occurring during hands-on, creative activities.

“Lifting American students from the middle to the top of the pack in STEM achievement over the next decade will not be attained by government alone,” said President Obama. “I applaud the substantial commitments made today by the leaders of companies, universities, foundations, non-profits and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers, and teachers from across the country.”

The competition is open to designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others interested in building digital media experiences that help young people interact and explore in new and innovative ways.

Information about past winners and the current competition is available at www.dmlcompetition.net.

What I wasn’t considering was that, School 2.0 is about the advancement of society, not simply technology as a nice-to-have. According to Jeff Utecht’s The Thinking Stick, “If you think schools need to change because of technology you have it wrong. Schools need to change because our society has changed.”

One of his examples helped me start to see School 2.0 as a new approach rather than an upgrade to School 1.0, addressing my worry that kids would be sent off to work on computers simply because the technology was there (e.g., when instructed to create a Powerpoint presentation, student gets so focused on the program’s bells and whistles that critical thinking and content organization go out the window). Utecht says, “School 2.0 needs to be new from the ground up starting with the foundation upon which we build our teaching practices.” In this model teachers serve as guides while students take ownership for learning by analyzing and processing information.

At an MIT education conference back in 2006, futurist Seely Brown predicted that for new technology to work, teachers would need to think about going from “sage on the stage to being a real mentor.” With his hybrid approach, traditional means are used to teach essential knowledge and critical thinking while technology is incorporated for “passion-based learning” to get students more engaged.

In other words, the School 2.0 discussion is not simply about throwing technology into the classroom. Instead, it considers how schools can adapt to changes brought about by technology, so that learning prepares students for the social and economic world that awaits.

If you think about it, School 2.0 is already happening before our eyes. Kids are putting podcasts on iPods to supplement classroom lectures; teachers are creating websites with links to online resources; administrators are emailing parents with school alerts; and libraries are lending downloadable ebooks. While there may be a price to pay during the learning curve, the world is changing, and education is along for the ride.

To understand more about the School 2.0 vision, link to David Warlick’s A Day in the Life of School 2.0.

Claiming added educational value, the cellphone industry is making a case for smartphones in the classroom. To opponents, they argue these phones are basically smarter, cheaper versions of laptop computers. Project K-Nect, a two-year pilot program in North Carolina, showed that at-risk students given high-end cellphones running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software and special programs “performed 25 percent better on the end-of-the-year algebra exam than did students without the devices in similar classes.”

Cell phones an educational tool? Not likely, according to a spokeswoman for the American Federation of Teachers who calls these devices a distraction and the idea of using them for education laughable. The math teacher I observed might agree.

On the other hand, smartphones could serve as a cost-effective solution to help close the digital divide. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study [pdf], while 81 percent of kids ages 2-18 in higher-income communities ($40,000 or more) have a computer at home, and more than half (58 percent) have Internet access, only 49 percent of kids in lower-income communities (less than $25,000 per year) have a computer at home, and just a quarter (23 percent) have Internet access.

Sponsored by Qualcomm, North Carolina’s Project K-Nect explores whether smartphones can improve math skills among at-risk ninth-grade students. To be eligible for the program, students had to have limited at-home Internet access, qualify for the free or reduced lunch program, and have below average math proficiency levels. In Pockets of Potential [pdf], a Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop report, Project K-Nect director Shawn Gross explains that, in addition to improved algebra test results, smartphone use led to increased student study time and greater parent involvement.

Project K-Nect participant Damon Jones-Way, 15, said he likes the after-hours homework help. “If we can’t figure out what we have to do, we can talk to our teachers or our friends,” he said. Damon also used his smartphone to post an audio blog of a rap song he wrote to help him memorize the laws of exponents.

Suzette Kliewer, a math teacher involved in Project K-Nect said her students are more motivated and frequently text each other or her with homework questions. “The amount of discussion that goes on in the evening is tremendous,” she said.

“Mobile devices are part of the fabric of children’s lives today: they are here to stay,” said Dr. Michael Levine, Executive Director of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center. It is no longer a question of whether we should use these devices to support learning, but how and when to use them.

The article is also available in PDF format.  Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School . Michael B. Horn is executive director of education at Innosight Institute. They are coauthors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

While a helpful time-saver for many, speech-to-text software can be a lifesaver for students with vision problems or non-verbal learning disabilities (NVLD).  For text-to-speech software, which scans content pages and reads them out loud, take a look at Kurzweil Educational Systems’ Kurzweill 3000.  Reviews are positive, but we would like to hear from any readers who have tried these systems.

As hand-held email devices proliferate, they are having an unexpected impact on family dynamics: Parents and their children are swapping roles. Like a bunch of teenagers, some parents are routinely lying to their kids, sneaking around the house to covertly check their emails and disobeying house rules established to minimize compulsive typing. The refusal of parents to follow a few simple rules is pushing some children to the brink. They are fearful that parents will be distracted by emails while driving, concerned about Mom and Dad’s shortening attention spans and exasperated by their parents’ obsession with their gadgets.

Says one parent, “Even though I’m home, I’m not necessarily there.” I’m going to have to think about this too.

Via joannejacobs.com an article in the Christian Science Monitor reports on university classes being held within Second Life.

For the first time this fall, a Harvard University class is meeting on its own “Berkman Island” within Second Life (SL). “Avatars,” visual images that represent the students and teachers, gather in an “outdoor” amphitheater, head inside a virtual replica of Harvard Law School’s Austin Hall, and travel to complete assignments all over the digital world.

In fact, the article says, “Some 60 schools and universities have set up shop inside Second Life.” Within Linden Labs, the company that operates Second Life, education is a focal point. No doubt we will continue to hear about online education conducted in this virtual world.

BTW, your child likely isn’t really going to college in Second Life, at least not now. You must be enrolled in Harvard Law or the Harvard Extension School to attend.