Before I will give you an impression of my personal experiences with New Media at “Gymnasium Ernestinum” which I attended from 1999 to 2006, I will present you an excerpt from the “Schulprogramm” concerning New Media, which I found on our school homepage.
THE AIMS:
- „Bewährte und zeitgemäße Inhalte mit angemessenen Methoden und Medien unterrichten […]“
- Wir befähigen die Schülerinnen und Schüler zu einem kompetenten Umgang mit alten und neuen Medien.
- Auf der Basis unseres Medienkonzeptes erlernen die Schülerinnen und Schüler ab der sechsten Klasse die computergestützte Informationsbeschaffung, -verarbeitung und -präsentation.
PERSPECTIVE
Im Schuljahr 2006/2007 entwickeln die Fächer ein Medienkonzept, um so die gute Ausstattung des Ernestinums an neuen Medien optimal zu nutzen.
- „Mehr als Wissen bieten – mit allen Sinnen lernen […]“
- Layout-, Design- und Multimedia-interessierte Schülerinnen und Schüler arbeiten regelmäßig an unserer Homepage, der Schülerzeitung und dem Jahrbuch.
PERSPECTIVE
Das Ernestinum beteiligt sich und bereichert das Leben in Rinteln und im Landkreis Schaumburg.
Wir wollen unseren Internetauftritt professioneller gestalten.
As you can see, the school suggests media competence to be taught already from the sixth grade on. Students are supposed not to be taught research techniques only, but additionally information processing and presentation techniques. In my opinion this is quite a useful target to prepare students for their later career at the university or other institutions.
What I lacked during my school time is exactly the presentation techniques which are required to, for example, create power point presentations. In my opinion, this is one of the basic skills which is obligatory to study in a university and which I had to figure out for myself in the course of the time.
However, since I graduated in 2006, I unfortunately was not among those lucky students who are taught media competence from the school year 2006/07 onwards.
For the second point, it is true that pupils who are interested in media and web design are free to join an extracurricular activity which is meant to enhance the school homepage. However, as I can remember there are only five to ten pupils who join this activity – but what about the others? Will they be discriminated in their future jobs just because of their lack of important media competence? I will leave this question unanswered.
WHAT MEDIA TOOLS does my school actually offer to its students? This is…
- Beamers
- Overhead projectors
- input devices: keyboards, mice, approximately three cameras, one digital camera, several microphones and headsets
- output devices like: monitors, at least two printers and one scanner and sound speakers •
Two classes with computers and internet access - Two computers in the library with internet access for at least 10 minutes
- CDs and DVDs which can be borrowed from the library
WHEN, WHERE and HOW OFTEN have they been used during my school time?
- In our lessons, the beamer and the overhead projector were used quite often.
- The computer classes were either used….
- …to do some research especially in the subjects History, Biology and Politics, which anyway was not very often.
- …to draw diagrams/ graphs and calculate something with the software “Derive” in mathematics.
- The camera and sometimes the digital camera were used quite frequently to record plays in the subject “Performative acting”.
- The microphones and sound speakers were mostly used to perform songs at concerts.
- There are some classes which have an internet access by themselves, thus it was sometimes possible to search for simulation processes or diagrams within the lesson.
- I think that in almost each subject we watched a film.
- CDs were mostly preferred by foreign language classes where we listened to listening comprehensions, songs or dialogues.
or
In retrospect to my school time, I believe that there was an average of media tools which have been used to support my school career. The presentations which I had to give at school made me familiar with the use of the overhead projector and the beamer. However, most of the knowledge about new media such as the use of search engines on the internet, chat programs and online dictionaries I acquired by myself.
