On the following page I want to present some major changes in the use of
media in German households. The JIM Study is a study on the basis of
the Media-Pedagogical Research Center Southwest and is about the media
consumption of 12-19-year olds. 1208 young people took part in the
survey which was a phone interview. You can find the whole study when
you follow this link: http://www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/JIM-pdf10/JIM2010.pdf
The study shows how important new media is to young people and that it therefore should be included in school as well. The diagrams in the survey are in German and because of that I will translate the most important part of each graphic.
The first part of the survey was about the media equipment in German households and also specific of the rooms of the youth. It’s striking that almost every teenager owns his or her own cell-phone as well as mp3-player. This graphic only shows what every boy or girl owns on their own; moreover there is of course equipment in the households which the kids can also use. About 80% of the kids own their own computer or laptop on which 50% can access the internet at all times because they have the possibility to do so on their very own computer.
The study shows how important new media is to young people and that it therefore should be included in school as well. The diagrams in the survey are in German and because of that I will translate the most important part of each graphic.
The first part of the survey was about the media equipment in German households and also specific of the rooms of the youth. It’s striking that almost every teenager owns his or her own cell-phone as well as mp3-player. This graphic only shows what every boy or girl owns on their own; moreover there is of course equipment in the households which the kids can also use. About 80% of the kids own their own computer or laptop on which 50% can access the internet at all times because they have the possibility to do so on their very own computer.
The numbers make obvious that computers and the internet are natural items to most children which again makes it easy to work with students in school on computers because the majority of them will already know the basic things about the use of computers.
Another important part of the survey was about the use of media in their free time. The kids could either answer if the use the item several times per week or daily.
Here you can see that the kids are using their cell-phones and the internet very often. Many of the kids use it on a daily basis. TV’s and Mp3-players are also used very frequently. When asked what is most important to young people than they answer on first place listening to music, followed by using the internet and on the third place they answered that using their cell-phone is most important. Again using the internet is really important which we as teachers can again use for our classes. Students can always solve tasks based on internet-research or other computer-based tasks shouldn’t be a problem anymore since every student has access to the internet at home, either on their own computer or the one of their parents. The following graphic again shows how many children have their own computer or access to the internet. Almost 80% have an own computer and more than 50% have an internet connection as well.
Most of the kids use the internet for communication purposes in first place and on the second place they play games on the internet. On the third place with 17% the children look for information on the internet, either for school or for their interest. When searching for information on the internet the kids mostly use search engines like google or look up information on wikipedia. Students only rarely know how to search for reliable sources or information on the internet and it's our task to teach them how to use the internet properly.
The study also shows that only 16% of the students work with a computer in school which gives us an impression of the major use of computers at home in the free time of the kids. Only 7% use the computer or internet for the preparation of presentations in school.
In conclusion I would say that new media plays a big role in childrens lifes and if a teacher doesn't use any media support in his or her classes then this doesn't meet the students expectations of good and interesting teaching. Teachers have the responsibility to educate their students about a responsible and accurate use of the internet, e.g. dataprotection and copyright should be discussed in school.
