Reflective post #2

I chose the finding that 18 year olds devote an average of 7 hours and 3 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week), media multitasking (using more than one medium at a time), means they manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into that time frame.  What stood out to me about these findings is the incredible amount of time young adults spend using entertainment media.  That is almost equivalent to a full time job, watching social and entertainment media.  I think the value of research like this is in developing a better picture of who our students are, the ways in which they learn and access information and the types of avenues we as educators have for providing our students with information and activities that are engaging to them as individual learners.  Also, these types of media outlets like social networks; blogs and podcasts can help to create teaching strategies that capitalize on a student’s own involvement in their educational process.  All of these findings point to a larger need for educators to access information and present it in new ways.  I think we should assume that research such as this is accurate however, I would be cautious in how we use findings such as this.  Do we use entertainment media just to entertain, or should we create media based on existing educational models and research based strategies in which students can benefit from their application in the classroom?  Hopefully Educators can harness technology to create new ways of engaging students and developing, more equipped teachers that use new media to develop their own teaching style.