However, looking at the curriculum I did find a topic that might suit the use of the New Media because the creative possibilities seem endless: extreme situations (11 G.2). More specifically my new media project would be about any kind of initiation – childhood to adulthood, innocence to knowledge, fantasy to reality – and I would start out conservitavely by reading “Catcher in the Rye” in class. Typical discussion topics would be Holden’s idea of a loss of innonence and the corruption of the adult world, his own hypocrisy regarding hippocrytes, as well as adolescent rebellion against established order.

As I am opposed to rigid and on-the-point assignments and regard creative assignments highly my assignment would be: use the new media to create a modern-day version of “Catcher in the Rye”. I would also offer them certain varieties but recommend that they use a blog to create a web version of their results. Ideally it should be an interpretation using film (I would gladly lend my own Canon XM2 for this purpose) with youtube serving as the host medium and the blog a webpage to stir interest in the project (as with big movie productions). This would probably work best during a project week and in two or three groups of 5 to 6 people. I would really challenge them to use this opportunity to express themselves creatively – if they want to bash our society’s ideals: great; if they want to merely portray common modern-day adolescent problems: great. This project is all about creative expression. It does not have to be a movie as they are welcome to create a ficticious web diary of Holden (21st century style) or go nuts with their interpretations by creating a ficticious government page of a society that has pre-organized initiation (such as “A Brave New World”). I’m not yet sure how to get their creative sparkplugs going in this direction but I would also like to assist my students by giving them creative input.

I think this project could be great to escape the confines of the classrooms and rigid teaching structures by engaging the student’s creativity. We had a project like this in 13th grade about “Faust” and it emphasized lots of things: teamwork, coordination, and more learning related: a deep and more personal interaction with the text. I’d also assist with the editing process, however only to the degree that I’d explain how the specific software works (I’d recommend using a Mac…remember this is the perfect school with new Power Book’s everywhere…dream project, remember?). My naive hope would be that my students can see how alive and powerful literature really is because it only exists and has a purpose with our own creative engagment.

Topic: America’s fascination with Al Capone and his contemporaries.

Introduction (5 min): podcast ‘Brooklyn’

1. Task: Listening Comprehension (5 min): Answer the questions about the podcast on the worksheet.

2. Teacher-student-dialog (3 min): Collecting answers

3. Media (5-10 min): Show various clips of ‘classic’ Gangster epics (Godfather, Once Upon A Time in America, Scarface)

4. Deconstruct Myths (20 min): Work out the cliches that surround the Gangster genre. How is the prototypical Gangster being portrayed? Characterize the Gangsters you’ve just heard about. Compare the content of the clips with the content of the podcast.

1. Do the students believe that there are benefits to employing the new media in the classroom?

2. Do teachers feel any pressure to implement the new media in class? In other words: is the new media merely being used in order to meet regulations (either from the curriculum or the school board, whatever)?

And here are the answers:

1. In a shocking turn of events the overall resonance seems to be generally positive. The teachers belief was in her own words that “in der Abwechslung der Methodik liegt die Wuerze”, so students would see it as a refreshing alternative to more conservative teaching methods.

2. Although I did not pose this question directly I did not feel like there was any pressure (at least on teachers of English) to implement the New Media. However, this school’s specific curriculum seems to emphasize the dangers of the internet a lot in their curriculum. This is surely in great part due to parental concern. Natural science teachers seem to use the New Media more often and in a greater variety and are also obliged to do so by the “Hessischer Lehrplan”. However, other departments seem to take up ways to implement the New Media more creatively and a cross-department e-project on Australia is in the works.

PS: As I am writing this I am trying to upload our adaptation of Faust on youtube. This was an assignment we had in 13th grade, where we actually had to deal with the new media: namely film.

The more interesting research regarded my first grammar school: the Altkoenigschule Kronberg. I only went here for the first 3 years of grammar school and had only the worst memories: anonymous environment, bullying, asbestos, fights. However, the internet presence looks nice at first glance and from what I’ve seen (and also heard from my little sister who is graduating there this year) a lot of things have changed. First of all they tore down the old asbestos-infested post-war main building and erected some state-of-the-art classrooms (something the University of Marburg should consider with the Philfak…looks like I’m studying in Wladiwostok). Then I realized that they also implemented a pilot project: Modellklassenraum 2000. According to the information on the website the school provides six classrooms devoted to the new media and also makes use of interactive whiteboards. I don’t how much of this is PR but it seems like this school has come a long way since I wandered its hallways. Back in the day we had 2 PC lab’s for 2000 students, equipped with Intel Pentium’s and the only time we actually got to use them was during Informatik. However, the only program we were ever exposed to was Word. So, in essence we played Pinball and Minesweeper. Nowadays, the AKS also uses a teaching platform similar to our VLC or VCT, which is great since students have constant access to handouts, teaching material, etc. The idea of a whiteboard is also intriguing since it gives both teachers and students the opportunity to review “Tafelbilder” and therefore a part of the teaching and learning process. I do have to say: I am impressed. However, I will interview my sister regarding the implementation of these tools and keep you posted. Let’s see if this is just a way for the school to get money from the district.

Another random thought that struck me while doing the virtual session was that even though the internet tends to standardize and find it’s own language that most people will eventually conform to due to reasons of comfort there are ways for communication to develop in different ways. I remembered an old spiegel-online article about Japanese emoticons and how they’re not read horizontally but vertically. And I don’t care what any linguistic purist or literature enthusiast – and I would consider myself the latter – has to say: it is beautiful to see how a language can develop when the public decides upon it: purely based upon convenience. On that note: G2G…ttyl in class (^_^)

PS: For a beautiful musical tribute to instant messaging and internet love look no further. Enjoy!

The claim that computer skills rather than the fine arts, our history, sciences, or social issues should be the epicenter of our education seems outlandish; provocative, at least. The problem is, however, that there is a lot of truth to be found with this notion. In a time and place where human knowledge is expanding at an enormous speed humanistic ideals have become obsulete. To think that schools and, to some degree, universities are concerned with providing knowledge to give their students a condensed understanding of the world as such and therefore themselves is more than naive. Even before the new media hype swept the country educational centers were seen mostly as preparatory institutions for society. Tools, rather than knowledge, is what school is all about. Especially at the university level it becomes clearer that – especially with today’s vast amount of information accessible in just mere seconds – it is better to know where and how to get the information than to, e.g., have a vague idea of the immense beauty that lie in Edgar Allan Poe’s words or the unmerciful nature seen by Stephen Crane. It seems only logical that now, as the Internet and the New Media are becoming our primary source of information, computer skills are viewed as a tool to not only access information but, in regard to the capitalist workforce, enhance our human capital with which we are thrown out into the bottomless pits of the job-market.

As you may have already noticed by now I too have fallen for the provocative rather than the sober scenario painting a second 1984. I do realize that the new media is not the issue here. We should ask ourselves: what do we want an education to be? Initiation into the grown-up-world as sound, self-sufficent citizens? An instruction, a guide to the essential tools and skills required to become successful? These questions have been here before the New Media and it’s also a fact that literature, art, and other (to me, at least) important subjects have been on the decline even as computers still looked somewhat like this. So, while we (meaning me and other conservatives) may mourn this shift of importance regarding subjects taught in school, we should also not forget to just get with the program, dive head-first into the new millenium and cancel those theater reservations.

However, as the segment on self-instructed learning already emphasized it is of utmost importance for students to acquire, at some point, the necessary skills to educate themselves. Today, this seems more important than ever because a degree rarely provides you with knowledge for decades to come as the sheer amount of new information and innovation in each field each year is enormous. With the internet we seem to hold a tool at our hands that enables us to access information at the fastest rate and with the highest convenience. Therefore, to know how to work with the internet equals knowledge and knowledge equals power. So, more power to the people! English teachers of tomorrow are the IT-specialists of yesterday.

While Bauerlein stresses the degree of ignorance and laziness of adolescents he also does not fail to point out the potential of the internet as such. However, even though the internet empowers you and gives you access to an almost unlimited amount of information and knowledge teens prefer to keep within their own little, limited worlds and spend a great deal of time with social networks such as facebook or myspace. However, according to Bauerlein exposure to new things will broaden your horizon and lead you on towards becoming a responsible adult. To some degree this should be the duty of gatekeepers by emphasizing the need to acquire a general knowledge of essential historical facts, literature, and culture. Only by understanding basic historical and cultural concepts are we able to fully grasp and take hold of our civic responsibities and not vote simply because of “inspiration”.

Aside from the fact that mass-media of any kind has always brought with it the danger of stupefying the masses (how’s this for TV?) I think that it is a little blue-eyed for Bauerlein to consider our civic responsibilites as an empowerement. Democracy has, can not, and will never be about ideals and theory because it has to be concerned with pragmatics. Plus, politics and the media have always counter acted to create vague conceptions of what politics are really about. “Inspiration” or personal feelings towards politics are simply what the political system is about…and this is absolutely nothing to do with the internet or its drone-like users. To me the internet is nothing but another media-escape to indulge in. However, one where the users have unprecedented power over its content and unlimited ways to use it. What’s also not new is the disappointing realization that humans will always take the easiest, most pleasant, and stupefying route possible.