Posts from — January 2010

If I were to ask you how much time per day children and teens spend with various media – computers, televisions, video games, etc – what would you say?

Would you imagine it is more time than young people spend in a school on any given day?

In a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation called GENERATION M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (January 2010) they found that young people spend 7.5 hours per day engaging with various media – but because of multi-tasking they pack 10.75 hours of stuff into that 7. 5 hours (and that’s every single day). And that’s the average! 11-14 year olds pack in 11:53 per day (nearly 12 hours) in total media exposure!

In addition, texting is NOT part of this study however 7th to 12th graders report spending about 1 hour and 35 minutes per day sending or receiving text messages.

Here’s a quote from a press release about that study:

With technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth, according to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation.  Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

The amount of time spent with media increased by an hour and seventeen minutes a day over the past five years, from 6:21 in 2004 to 7:38 today.  And because of media multitasking, the total amount of media content consumed during that period has increased from 8:33 in 2004 to 10:45 today.

Assuming this is true, what do you think the implications are for schools and schooling? 

If young people spend approximately 6 hours per day in the schooling environment (not counting extra-curricular activities) doing what we might call single tasking while spending about 7.5 hours per day multi-tasking with technology what chance do schools have in getting and keeping their attention – let alone getting them to learn anything?

And, young people spend time using media 7.5 hours per day seven days per week, 365 days per year.

This blog has been attempting to explore the difference between schooling and education. One of the key models I’ve developed to explain this difference is something I call the Spheres of Influence model. The concept originated in some work we did with a school district in southern California back in the early 90s.

The model attempts to visualize several things. 1) Schools operate under a control and compliance operating principle. 2) The organizing principle is a hierarchy however that can be shown in a different way 3) All human beings want to have some control over themselves as well their environment. 4) the model attempts to show different spheres of influence from a systems perspective.

The model begins with the young person in the middle and moves out from there. The classroom is the first sphere of influence, then the school, then the school district. The school board has the most influence over the district with the state department of education influencing the boards and the federal department influencing the states.

The image above is a venn diagram showing these spheres of influence. It’s not to scale or meant to show the difference or amount of influence each sphere has over the other. This model by itself can be a catalyst for conversations about improvements and changes in the system that might be beneficial to the overall outcomes of the system.

At the same time we can also draw another model which reflects the influences in the young person’s life outside of the schooling system. These sets of influences can be considered the education environment (note: I will need to define what I mean by schooling vs education in another blog post).

This set of influences again start with the young person in the center. The family is the immediate sphere of influence around the young person, then the neighborhood and the community. Moving out from there is the city, the state, and then the nation.

The image above left is a venn diagram of these spheres of influence.

Note that the specific types of influences are not shown nor are the degrees of influence each sphere has over the other. Media of all types will show up in this sets of influences.

Again this model can serve in a number of capacities when thinking about making changes or improvements to the lives of young people.

In light of the research shown in the report mentioned above one simple way of looking at these things can be time. A young person spends more time in the model I’m calling education then they do in the model I’m calling schooling.

Research has also shown that young people spend up to 16% of their time in the schooling environment while they spend up to 84% of their time in what I’m calling the education environment.

The model at the top of the page, while not precisely to scale, attempts to show the situation described here.

These models, taken separately or together can provide a perspective and some food for thought when engaging in a process exploring influences in young people’s lives as well as changes that might be made in schools in order to be relevant in today’s world.

What do you think is most important in looking at these models? What kinds of things could you imagine schools doing in order to put them in the education business? What questions do these models raise?

What are the implications of the use and influence of technology and media on these models? and what should be changed in the system of schools and schooling to take advantage of technology and media?

Here are several links to the press release and to the report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds.

If you haven’t already seen it I posted a blog post on our main blog about the Future of Business Education. This post was inspired by a video interview by the McKinsey Consulting firm of Blair Sheppard, dean of Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. As the dean of the school he’s feeling like business schools need to change to provide a different and better product for a new era.

Check out the post at

http://www.innovationlabs.com/2010/01/future-of-business-education/

and let me know what you think. Will business schools be able to make the necessary changes to not only keep up with the changes in society but to lead?