Interactive TV and learning among pre-adolescents: an analysis of innovation, communication technologies and education
Interactive TV, a new media service based on an amalgamation of traditional TV watching and Web-based features, has turned consuming TV programmes and value-added services into an individual and interactive experience. This research aims to stimulate thinking about the changing role of interactive TV as it moves from a passive medium to a more active medium, enabling learning opportunities for young adults previously confined to the personal computer (PC) domain. This new paradigm of interactivity for education and learning offers personalised and innovative ways to learn that differ from learning in traditional academic courses. To ensure that TV-based learning is adequately supported, the research provides teaching and learning materials through electronic media. A Taiwanese educational TV multimedia home platform (MHP)programme entitled 'Follow Me after School', which is composed of science topics, reference materials, study quizzes and interactive functions, is used to facilitate teaching through screen-based media and stimulate youths' after-school learning activities. Joshua Meyrowitz's 'situational' approach is adopted to form the methodological framework of this work. The framework incorporates a set of quantitative questionnaires and the formation of youth groups to watch interactive TV's edutainment programmes. The methodology also involves qualitative data-collection methods, such as participant media activities recorded on a guided, open-end, diary-style form and multitasking analyses, to provide in-depth understanding of learners' experiences in the new media environment. Drawing on new technologies' involvement in children's educational and social experiences, this research focuses on pre-adolescents in Taiwan and presents a scenario demonstrating that although well-designed interactive TV has highly elevated technological capabilities, it cannot change the fact that children's TV watching at home is mostly a social and shared activity. Watching TV is a major part of routine activity in a family environment, neither complemented by nor substituted for PC-related behaviours in certain time, space and social-cultural conditions.
H Social Sciences, HM Sociology, L Education (General)
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