Introduction

Introduction
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How do children communicate and learn today? Current cognitive development of children includes the use of and exposure to technology. To what extent has technology affected the cognitive processes of children? This literature review is designed to answer that question, and also go a step further: how can the traditions of education, such as textbook and lecture-based learning, catch up?

Technology is a staple of life in the 21st century and creates tech-savvy students who are active in collaborative networks using the internet. Technology use by students has increased with cheaper hardware, open source and market-bundled applications, and increased connectivity with wireless networking. Desktop computing is a thing of the past, and mobile computing is on the rise. The marketing of technology products to the youth sector is a multi-billion dollar industry. Multimedia tools have saturated the youth market in the form of gaming, mobile internet phones, and personal computers. Now more than ever, students at the 7-12 level are aware of, and drive, web-based trends and products. Peer and interest networks have developed and are dynamic, collaborative forms of communication. Facebook and DeviantArt are two examples of massive peer and interest networks that students are connected to and deeply engaged with.

Some states such as Maine have adopted technology initiatives in order to keep up with the trends present in non-educational settings such as the workplace. Other states have zero technology budgets in education. Regardless of the presence of hardware and software in schools, students today are still engaged and learning among peer and interest networks that they cultivate and develop over time. I intend in this review to show that the majority of teachers are still unable to "harness" the effective and productive use of technology in school. It is this shortcoming among educators that lends itself to classroom time often being the least productive time in a modern student's life.

There are encouraging trends in education toward a Web 2.0 model. This model can be defined as a networked teacher/learner environment that is student-centered, inquiry-based, and internet-based. This is a new model and at the forefront of its development are people such as David Warlick, Vicki Davis, Jim Moulton, Jim Burke, and many others. The idea of a "flat classroom" is being integrated into classroom practices and students are collaborating in educational settings to create interest-driven, differentiated, peer-reviewed, expert-reviewed content. It is a powerful concept and very new.

Why has adoption of computers in schools not yet proven to be an indicator of achievement? There are different factors that influence this trend. The training for teachers is lacking and teachers (justifiably) demonstrate a resistance to the unknown without proper professional development. Technology services, both hardware and software, are growing at a rate that is not comparable to traditional educational models. The speed of publishing and verifying information is much faster than traditional, peer-reviewed publishing. The peers are networked and can establish themselves by enriching the interest network. Textbooks are considered old school by teens, as they know that the easiest way to learn something is to network or participate in virtual environments.

New and emerging media technology, which for the purpose of this paper I shall refer to as modern media, is not well understood by administrators and curriculum directors. Cell phones are often banned in schools, and social networking sites are often blocked. Wikipedia and Google are not a traditional librarian's first thoughts when it comes to research. The ease with which experts can share information, via webcasts, message boards, e-mail, micro-blogging, or chatting (text and video based), is unparalleled. People and information and ideas are accessible to the average person with connectivity.

This new reality, unprecedented in both its immense opportunity for learning and its divergence from traditional methods, throws the traditional model of 7-12 grade education on its head. The average 15 year old in America has an e-mail, a cellphone, a MySpace or Facebook, texting abilities and a webcam. Given these new forms of media, classroom-based instruction can lose its impact. Out-of-touch teachers who do not know how to integrate cell phones properly into their curriculum (connecting their students to an SMS feed of current vocabulary, for example, or a Google calendar with test dates) or manage social networks (like Twitter, for a quick brainstorm) or assign meaningful work (a wiki page, for example, as opposed to worksheets). will realize increasing lack of engagement by students as their lives become even more technologically involved..

The change in traditional education is coming from a grass-roots network and not from administrators or state departments of education or the secretary of education. Traditional teachers continue to work as they have always worked. The next generation of teachers may or may not be trained in this new methodology because it is all so new. Some colleges and universities offering teacher training are incorporating Web 2.0 and modern media integration into their courses, but because public education, as a slow-moving bureaucratic arm of government, is unable to keep up with the rate of change, the teachers are behind the students in terms of expertise and cognition.

Interestingly enough, the average teenage Facebook user probably knows how to access the site on a "safe" server by simply going to a proxy. A networked teen will often know before the teacher if there is a snow day or not, through SMS texting on cell phones. Message boards, comment sections, galleries, diaries, and micro-blogging are the norm among teens. Students are using the network tools to make meaning of their world and define their learning to suit their own interests. The literacy skills they are using supercede the oft-criticized internet-speak of texts and instant messages: //lol, inmho, idk, bbl, ttfn :-)//. In a new context, can't this internet-speak represent the same shortcuts that we use to memorize long pieces of text? ROYGBIV?

Learning must be re-defined in this new landscape. This paper exams the role of multimedia and semantic networks in k712 grade education: What are the trends, what are the predictions for growth, and what changes must take place within schools to embrace modern media in schools? It is likely that within ten years the landscape will be virtually flattened and the gaps in hardware and networks will decrease, allowing for a large, socially-conscious on-line, youth-oriented community that must seamlessly incorporate content delivery, collaborative publishing tools, and assessment of student work. The tools that exist today are indicators of what teachers must adapt to using as part of their curricular goals.