Conference:
ECER 2004
Format:
Paper
Session Information
Session 9, Informal learning contexts with(out) technology
Papers
Time:
2004-09-24
13:00-14:30
Room:
Chair:
Gaby Weiner
Discussant:
Gaby Weiner
Contribution
Nowadays, digital and technological media seem to be promoting important social, economical and political changes -all of them should be understood inside the Information Society access and generalization process- and also, they seem to affect the way in which adolescents become adult. In this sense, we wanted to understand the real effect, the real role of the Internet in adolescents' everyday life. This paper explores how adolescents use the Internet as a medium for communication, entertainment, information and education in their everyday life. The principal aim of the research we have developed is ethnographical approaching to the role of the Internet on the construction of adolescents' personal identities, interpersonal relationships and learning styles in their everyday lives. Specifically, we have adopted the methodological strategy of "following the child", with the objective of understanding deeply, the real interaction between people and technologies, getting specific young people's particular experiences, histories and only circumstances.We reveal here some of the first findings of two different adolescents' case studies that we have carried out. These two adolescents -who use the Internet regularly in their lives and in different educational and social scenarios, in both formal and informal educational contexts- have been selected after two European researches project financed by the Safer Internet Action Plan (SIAP) called SIFKaL Safer Internet for Knowing and Living (2001) and Safe Borders (2003). Some of the conclusions of the two case studies would be the following ones: - Regarding Communication and Entertainment (using chat)o Individual adolescent using more than one identities and adolescents' groups sharing one identity in chat roomso Groups of girls and boys sharing and negotiating rules, strategies and ways of communication o Vocabulary in chat rooms become a game for young adolescents- In relation to Entertainment and Video Games:o True social organization in cyber-cafes playing games on line and physically in the roomo Strategies looking for information on the Internet regarding the games they like playing (new ways to complete the game, information about characters, communication with other people that like playing the game)- Economical and financial issues o Using of certain strategies by adolescents to manage their economic resources in some places, as cyber- cafes or Internet rooms, in which they usually connect to the Internet and they have to pay to use the computer and get the connection.- Informal Learning versus Formal Learning of the Interneto Informal learning and practices of the Internet are more natural and enrich than formal practices at schools. o Autonomy versus Heteronomy: outside formal educational situations adolescents seem to have more freedom to learn and to investigate the possibilities of this resource.
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