I did a quick scan of my aggregator last night, just before going to bed — and I just have to say how wonderful it is to have time to scan my aggregator. I was stopped by this post from Jeff Utecht of The Thinking Stick.
While sitting in a taxi the other day I noticed that the taxi had installed new media ad machines on the back side of the passenger seat. So if you are sitting in the back of a taxi this is what you see (see small version of his original photo). Pretty cool! You can touch one of the icons at the button and it plays you the ad for that company. You can see the last button on the row also controls the volume. I clicked on one of the ads and it was an matching game where you flip over cards…
This interested me on several levels. First, I’ve long thought that ads should be selectable. Rather than watching the ads that have been selected for me, based on the demographic that watches this or that TV show — which I almost never do — I should have a place where I can see the ads for the products I am actually considering buying. I guess that web sites are like this, in a way, but I like to watch good advertising as well.
I also think that we’re going to see a lot more of this — often without a menu. As people are watching less programmed TV, advertisers are going to be looking for new places to put their work, and with flat panel TVs becoming less expensive, we’ll likely be seeing them just about everywhere that we are standing and looking for something to look at — like the backs of taxis, elevators, and gas pumps, each of these places where I’ve seen TV ads playing. Above urinals? It’s only a matter of time. They must present their ads. We must pay attention to know what we should buy.
It’s how we learn.
It’s how we were taught.
Put the information in my head and treat it with, “A spoon full of sugar…”
I think that if we want our students to become discerning consumers, we need to make them discerning learners. ..and I do not think that we can do this simply by teaching lessons on evaluating content. I think that we have to work as discerning teachers. Put those textbooks and other packaged teaching materials away, and teach from the real world of content. Teach from the library and teach from the Internet — and practice discernment in front of your students. Teach by asking questions about the information you teach from — that it’s a conversation.
David,
Would you please clarify for me what you mean when you go from the paragraph about seeing on-demand ads every where we go to the two statements about “it’s how we learn” and “it’s how we are taught”. I am unsure of the connection you are making. I suspect you’re articulating the argument that learners today learn on-demand but that’s not clear to me since previously you were mentioning the ubiquitous nature of ads.
Incidentally, I hope the ads above urinals are not touch-select as the ones in the Jeff’s taxi. There’s an important distinction to be made, as you indicate the controllable nature being a highlight of this technology and the on-demand nature. I doubt on-demand touch controlled ads would make it to the men’s room but maybe I’ll be proven wrong.
Thanks for helping me think this through…
Chris Craft
No, that’s not what I ment, and I can see how you made the missed my meaning. Jeff’s experience in that taxi is the first time I’ve heard of a menu of ads. The rest (gas station and elevator) were just delivery of advertizing, with some news thrown in.
My point is that advertizers present you with the information and expect you to learn it. This is not unlike my experience as a student, where the teacher presented the information to use, expecting us to learn it. Unfortunately, many students are still being taught the same way, taught how to be taught, learning to pay attention and believe what you’re told.
We aren’t teaching students to be discerning consumers, because we aren’t, by and large, teaching them to be discerning learners.
Is that more clear?
I’m confused, what does broadcasting ads to a captive audience have to do with learning?
Advertising is a form of indoctrination designed to make its target feel bad. I’d hate that to be the lesson for education.
Incidentally, I sat in a NY taxi from JFK to midtown during rush-hour yesterday and had to watch the same four “news” clips (What happened to Nicole Kidman’s career? SIDs. A YouTube video made of girls pole dancing on the N train and the weather) over and over again for an hour. How long will it be until a cab driver goes nuts listening to the same trivia for 8-10 hours?
I tried READING the ESPN headlines via the touchscreen while bending my body in a 90 degree angle so I could page down and read at the same time until I felt like I was going to hurl.
The good thing is that NYC taxis must now take credit cards and you can even swipe your own card and enter the tip via the touchscreen in the back seat. That is fantastic and it has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to tell use about the future of teaching and learning.
Ok! Let me see if I can make this easy!
A. Advertisers feed you information with sugar so that you will perform they way they want, come time to shop
B. Traditional teaching (scripted direct teaching) feeds students with information and sometimes with some sugar so that students will perform the way we want, come time to be tested.
When we teach students how to be taught, how to pay attention to what establishment wants you to, so that you will behave this or that way, then, I think that we are making perfect little consumerbots.
However, if our children are learning in a more learner-centric way, where the student has a voice, is part of the conversation, makes decisions, and learns to express what they learn, then we may be producing more discerning consumers/citizens.
As you say Dave I think it has to do with choice and decision making. Nobody makes me click on the ads, nobody makes me watch them. But if they are there I get to choose whether or not I want to watch them and now I get to choose what ad I want to watch and in what order I want to watch them in.
Part of me wonders if they are keeping any stats for the companies. Do we know which ads are being clicked on the most? Which ads are watched to completion and which ads are clicked passed. That I think would be valuable information to an advertising company. To know what types of ads have value in the back seat of a taxi.
Now, what if a school was set up the same way. A student comes to school and has a menu of subjects to choose from that day. Or maybe it’s not a menu of subjects maybe it’s a menu of teaching styles. Just like in the back seat of the cab your choices are limited to what is presented to you. But the student still has a choice, we build decision making skills into our students and according to Siemens’ Connectivism Theory the act of making a choice is in itself a learning process.
What if that menu was teachers. What if I was a student and I got to choose my teacher for a particular unit of study. The next unit of Social Studies is US History 1960-1970. What if there were four teachers and I got to choose which teacher I wanted to learn from. I know from what others students have said who is good and who is not so good (form of advertising that happens in every school) I get to choose based on a syllabus that is presented if I want to write a final paper for Teacher A or create a video for Teacher B.
Could a school then collect data to see which teachers are more popular, what teaching methods students prefer for a given lesson and which teachers are “making the grade” when it comes to relating with students?
I think this is what the ad says to me. It has nothing to do with ads, it has to do with choice. I now have the opportunity to choose my ad. What if we gave student the power to choose their teacher or learning method?
Talk about student empowerment! This really speaks in favor of the student and gives them the power of making a choice in how they best learn. It’s a leap above other less-then-kind sites such as “rate my professor” and other spurious avenues for matching teaching style with learning style. Thanks for the post Jeff.