There was an interesting short article in this weekend’s USA Today Magazine about the things that parents and teachers fear most about young people using the Internet. Many assume that it is porn or spam or computer virus infection or some other terrible thing but in fact, what most adults worry about is the bombardment of advertisements into the eyeballs of their kids.

And I agree.

Whenever I consider what sites I might have students going to during and after school, I always first take into consideration what kind of advertisements might be there, and it drives me crazy just how prevalent it is and how hard it is to avoid. I know commercialism has its place in our society but it seems to me that the promise of Web 2.0 is often compromised by marketing tactics. My first reaction whenever I see a cool, free site is: how are they getting money for what they are doing? I wish this weren’t so. I wish I could just find something neat, use it and thank the developers for making my world a better place (and open source folks are doing that, so thank you!).

I know my students and my own kids are not immune to the bombardment of products in the world but when sites offer free games, embedded with advertisements right in the game (never mind pop-ups), I just can’t stand it and silently join the forces of teachers who avoid technology for various reasons. Luckily, I can often bring myself back when I remind myself that my role as a teacher is to teach my students how to critically examine these trends, and how to make good choices about technology, and how to look at mass media through the lens of marketing, etc.

Peace (on a rant),
Kevin