Based on four years of experience teaching computers to 8-12 year olds, media scholar Ellen Seiter offers parents and educators practical advice on what children need to know about the Internet and when they need to know it. The Internet Playground argues that, contrary to the promises of technology boosters, teaching with computers is very difficult. Seiter points out that the Internet today resembles a mall more than it does a library. While children love to play online games, join fan communities, and use online chat and instant messaging, the Internet is also an appallingly aggressive marketer to children and, as this book passionately argues, an educational boondoggle.
"'The Internet Playground' may well be the most important book you read this year. Ellen Seiter's close-up study of two California school districts shows how the often-celebrated promotion of computer-based classroom instruction by profit-making firms actually imperils the education of our children and threatens the future of our democracy. Perhaps most important, she concludes with concrete and practical proposals for incorporating computers into educational settings in ways that will serve the needs of students and society alike." (George Lipsitz, Author of 'American Studies in a Moment of Danger')
"'The Internet Playground' is a wake-up call in the importance of thinking seriously about relationships between media literacy training and computers in the classroom from one of the most significant contemporary scholars of children's relationships with popular culture." (Henry Jenkins, Professor of Comparative Media Studies, MIT)
"'The Internet Playground' is a wake-up call in the importance of thinking seriously about relationships between media literacy training and computers in the classroom from one of the most significant contemporary scholars of children's relationships with popular culture." (Henry Jenkins, Professor of Comparative Media Studies, MIT)