| A Day In The Life Print
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Description
The goal of this activity is to examine how technology
and media have changed over the past 50 years and how this
has influenced everyday life. Students are also asked to
predict the role of media 50 years from now.
Time
1+ hour
Materials
A Day in the Life - a case study (one per student)
Retrieval Chart (one per group of three to five students)
Background
In the School Success
in the Media Age audio tapes, Dr. David Walsh describes
media's impact on the developing brains of children and
identifies the seven building blocks for school success.
Due to technological advances, the prevalence and forms
of media have changed drastically over the past 50 years.
For example, 50 years ago very few households had televisions;
today 99 percent of homes have a television, with an average
of 2.4 televisions per household. More than half of America's
children have televisions in their bedrooms. In School
Success, Dr. Walsh explores the impact of these changes
on our children and our society.
Procedure
1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students.
Explain that they will be reading two case studies that
review a day in the life of two high school students, one
living in 1949 and one living in 1999. Explain that they
attend the same high school in the same community.
2. Distribute the "A Day in the Life" case study
the students and ask them to read it.
3. Define "media" for the group. Media is something
that someone creates to carry a message from one person
or group to another. This message can take many forms.
4. Brainstorm a list of forms of media. The list may include,
but is not limited to:
television
radio
movies
magazines
videos
CD-ROMs
video games
computer games
telephone
Internet
billboards
signs
posters
mail
flyers |
record players
e-mail
voice mail
pagers
cell phones
cassette tapes
graffiti
stickers (on fruits and vegetables)
catalogs
clothing (with logos, picture, and slogans)
books
newspapers
comic books
VCRs
packaging
answering machines |
3. Distribute a Retrieval Chart to each student group.
Instruct the students to use the retrieval chart to systematically
gather information from the case studies.
4. Discuss the following:
- What changes took place in family lifestyles during
the 50 year time period of the two case studies?
- Are these changes perceived as positive or negative?
- Which of these changes are related to changes in technology
or media and how?
- In what ways were the behavior and attitudes of the
two students different?
- Similar?
- In the students' opinion, how accurate of a picture
do these stories present?
- Do they apply to people in all areas of the country
in these two time periods?
- Do they apply to people in all areas of the world
during these two time periods?
5. Give each group 10 minutes to write about what they
think a day in the life of a high school student in the
year 2049 would be like.
6. Have each group share their scenarios with the class.
Extension Activity
1. To verify the accuracy of the case studies, have students
design an interview tool with a specific list of questions
relating to technology, media, and lifestyle.
2. Have students use the list of questions to interview
community residents who were in high school in 1949 and
local businesspeople who have been in operation since 1949
or before.
3. Ask students to present their findings to the class.
Prepared by Education Strategies
for the
National Institute on Media and the Family
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