New media has taken massive amounts of criticism from various
sources. It seems every American has some idea about the negative effects of
new media whether they be true or false. The idea that new media has no
real-life benefits to help instruct and grow our workforce has been derived
from this state of mind. On the contrary, research has revealed that this
statement is not factual and new media is actually doing the opposite. As
technologies grow so does the educational system in order to cope with the ever-changing
world. The learning system today is much different from the traditional school.
Much of what we see is through online interactions and an education that is
personalized for each individual. This has been shown to be highly successful
and the rate at which children are advancing is much greater than what had been
seen before. There is skepticism surrounding this argument as well. The fact
that the traditional way of teaching has worked since the founding of this
nation carries a fair amount of weight. This also relates to the reality that
the new media educational system is still very young and though early results
are successful there is no indication that it will continue this way. Both of
these arguments have truth behind them but there comes a point where the idea
of change can have the potential to become greater than before and further
progress our society. This change would not be a quick and subtle one but given
time the integration of new media styles into the traditional school will allow
for an easy transition into the new form of education. Complete isolation of
every child into their personalized educational journey is not the goal of this
either. Interaction with peers is a necessity in order to develop group skills
such as communication and working together. In order for the face-to-face
interactions to coexist with personalized learning a new system would need to
be created. A system where the students are able to go and work on their own
material but also be able to interact with other students through a recess or
lunch. Possible group projects would be established in order to show the
students how to fairly share a workload and work together to reach the desired
goal. Though this style of education is fairly new research results are already
proving its success. Soon the traditional school will be changed and a new
future will be molded due to the beneficial learning of personalized education.
