“Playing with Media” offered an interesting perspective on how the use of media is important to our schools. However, when reading there were parts throughout the chapter that caught me by surprise or that I did not agree with.
It was interesting how much emphasis Fryer put on cellphones, because honestly I cannot envision them in a school setting. When he said that educators should “embrace them” I could not disagree more. Cellphones in a school setting are nothing but a distraction to students, and that is coming from the student perspective. As a future teacher, if there was an app beneficial to my classroom, I wouldn’t use it because my students would be busy doing other things like checking emails or text messages. I think that its completely ridiculous to use them in a school setting because there is no way for teachers to monitor or restrict the use of cellphones.
Another point Fryer made that I did not agree with was how students need media to be creative and/or create. I think there are many other different ways to be creative and that technology is one of those ways, but it is not the only way. It is important for students, especially children, to express their creativity. It’s a little over the top to say that we need to depend of technology for that.
At the beginning of the chapter, Fryer expressed the importance of images. I thought it was interesting how we learn more through pictures than through text, and personally I can relate because I am more apt to learn that way as well. Fryer writes that: “learning experiences in our classrooms for students should be filled with visual media created and shared by students as well as teachers” because if we learn through images, a classroom should be bright, colorful, and engaging to make students more willing to learn the subject at hand, and more inspired to unleash their creative side.
These are honest and well-stated insights. Fryer was not saying that technology is the only way to be creative. In fact, he states, "Creative play, with media and with other things, is an intrinsically valuable activity which results in tangible as well as intangible benefits." He encourages creativity with media/technology but also with other things. This chapter is about ways to promote creativity with technology and that technology is a good way to practice creativity. You and he actually agree: we don't have to depend on technology to be creative.
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