6 year old working with Netflix Roku.

Netflix is the primary family technological entertainment in the home of this observation. They have a Roku player that works with a wireless router to play anything they select online from Netflix on their computer and put in the queue. The child is 6 and this serves as his “TV”. Netflix sends one DVD at a time and anything in the online queue can be played whenever through the Roku box.
He logs in to his laptop and opens the internet, clicks on the Netflix icon, and it directs him to our Netflix account. He can read well enough to navigate, but by now he has memorized where to go. It is not the first time he has used it. He moves into the children’s area and begins selecting movies and TV shows to make available. He looks for shows for about 20 minutes. He does not select everything he sees, only those that he recognizes, has heard about from conversations with his friends, or that look interesting. The look is of primary concern and most children’ shows have lots of colorful artwork to display, but he is still selective. After selecting the shows he wants to add, he will close out and go get the box. It has three wires to plug into the RCA plugs on the TV and a power cord. He puts it on the television of his choice. Turns it on and then selects the show that he wants to watch. At this point, he knows enough to get it going and watch shows, but his navigation is primarily visual. He can read well enough, but lacks the patience to read through the excerpt’s to see if a show is what he wants or not. If in doubt, he will put it in the queue. He also does not quite understand that you really only need so much in there. He does not remove things once he is done watching them, he will just keep adding to it. Once the show is running, it is generally passive entertainment. .
The biggest difference with this over television is that the viewer is controlling the content. He has chosen what he wants to watch and he will control when he watches it. If he wants to stop, he can and does not fear missing the rest of the show. There are also no commercials, so he is not constantly bombarded with information that he did not ask for. Without the commercials, the shows are shorter so he can usually get more of what he wants in less time than with regular television. Reading speed and comprehension are the biggest obstacles to his use and as those increase, he will get more out of this technology. Other than this, the rest of the muscular movements and images are the same.
So how does this apply to education? He has learned early on that he can control the information in front of him. He is not restricted to what is on at that time and he can use technology to get the information he wants right now. In the classroom, this plays out into why most students would rather not just watch a video on a subject. Most “videos” are meant for passive absorption and the only option a teacher might take is to have guided questions to answer during the presentation. The videos that are shown are usually older and out of date as well. The problem is that most students would rather be looking for the information online to see what they can find. In the classroom, the better options for this would be using a computer lab and having the students put together the information they find and post it or as simple as googling something as a class and seeing where it goes, and letting the students drive the searching.
Technology is the tool they use to drive their life. They reach their friends through instant communication. They put the songs they like on their IPOD. They play the games they chose to play. As a teacher, current technology needs to become the tool that drives the learning. The material you present needs to be accessible and work with the technology they have, otherwise it is just outdated, boring, and something they will never use.