Episode 10: Student Takeover — “Our Lives and Tech”
Tags: Education, Storytelling, Learning, Tech, Edtech

Transcript

Hannah: This episode of Nevertheless is going to be a little bit different from the others. The podcast has been handed over to us, the students of School 21 in London, UK.

Lethabo: Nova Pioneer in Johannesburg, South Africa…

Sophie: And Blue Ridge Virtual Governors School in Virginia, in the United States.

Ethan: In this episode we’ve written and produced three stories about technology, looking at how it has impacted our lives in different ways.

Lethabo: We look at how technology has made people, teachers, and parents lives easier.

Csarina: How it’s changed the way we understand the news.

Justin: And how it has made living in our own town quite terrifying.

Csarina: This is Nevertheless, a podcast about learning in the modern age.

Ethan: Each episode, we shine a light on an issue impacting education and young people, and speak to people creating transformative change.

Hannah: Supported by Pearson.

Story 1

Hannah: Hi, I’m Hannah.

Csarina: Hi, I’m Csarina.

Hannah: We’re from School 21. As two teenagers growing up on social media, we wanted to know what it was like to get news both on social media and outside world.

Hannah: Earlier this month, Csarina’s internet went out and couldn’t access anything online.

Csarina: So not being able to get any of the news, we wondered what it would be like to get the news back in the day when there was no social media.

Hannah: We spoke to some people who didn’t grow up with the internet and wanted to know how they got their news.

Csarina: Hi, Miss.

Ms. Davey: Hi.

Hannah: All right. So what world event had like the biggest impact to you, back in the day.

Ms. Davey: Okay so one of the most significant world events that I remember happening was 9/11. So it happened when I was in year 12, and I was in an English Literature lesson when it happened. I remember one of the English teachers bursting into the room and telling the other English teacher that some planes had hit the Twin Towers. I’m not really convinced any of us knew what the Twin Towers were, but we knew that planes crashing into buildings did not sound good and we just knew that it was this huge thing.

Ms. Davey: Yeah, so when we went home it was really interesting because at this point in time, you got home and it was just news on every channel, like the BBC and ITV, at least, it was just rolling news coverage and it was just picture after picture or videos.

Ms. Davey: My friends, like everyone had mobile phones, but didn’t really have the internet on our phones back then.

Hannah: Oh wow.

Ms. Davey: So people were kind of like texting each other and stuff. You could get the internet, but it was quite convoluted and it wasn’t really like coloured screens and stuff. So a lot of it was from the TV-

Csarina: What about newspapers?

Ms. Davey: Yeah, newspapers. So like we used to have a newspaper delivered every day, which most people did.

Hannah: How did you know that that information was accurate? Did you have any idea it was accurate or did you just take that information from the people you knew and was just like, oh yeah, that happened?

Ms. Davey: Well I think my main source of information was probably the BBC and I would consider them to be a trustworthy source. Over the next few days with all the conspiracy theories started to come out. So in terms of working out they why’s of the event, as opposed to the what, that was quite difficult to find useful or trustworthy information on. ’Cause even things like Wikipedia didn’t exist at that point in time.

Hannah: Wikipedia didn’t exist?

Ms. Davey: When I was in primary school, we used to have a set of physical encyclopaedias at home, and if we had homework then we would go-

Hannah: So how big were those books? They’re like that big.

Ms. Davey: Oh so they were like-

Hannah: Oh, no.

Ms. Davey: They were almost like giant cookery book size, if you’re trying to visualize it, and they had black covers and then the first one was like the letter A. And then there was the letter B.

Hannah: That must’ve been really time consuming. So do you think like the way we get information now is better than how you did it before?

Ms. Davey: Oh, it’s so much more accessible because those books were really expensive as well. So there used to be sales reps that went around with the Encyclopaedia Britannica books and if people could afford them, they’d buy them, but often, they’d have to pay for them monthly over several years because they were so expensive. Like I’ve got a really strong memory of them being in the bookshelf in our house, and you’d go and sit and you’d look stuff up.

Hannah: Oh my gosh. That is so time consuming.

Ms. Davey: Yeah. But now you can find anything out really quickly, but you need to be bit more savvy about whether it’s reliable. Can I actually trust this? Is this fact? Is it opinion?

Hannah: So, when Ms. Davey was talking about the fact that she had newspapers delivered to her house, we’re like, “Oh, that is really weird.” So we decided to have a go and buy a newspaper ourselves.

Csarina: We’ve never bought a newspaper before and we wanted to know what the experience was like.

Hannah: And the experience was very interesting, indeed.

Hannah: So what are we getting? One pound-sixty, though seems a bit extortionate.

Csarina: Okay. Why is the Times one pound-sixty? I can get two Suns for that.

Hannah: The Guardian is two pounds.

Csarina: Okay. The Daily Star.

Hannah: Okay, that’s brilliant. Shrek dwarf six-foot-tall, right? The Morning Star. What do you think about The Morning Star?

Csarina: No.

Hannah: No? It looks a bit boring.

Csarina: Yeah, it does look a bit boring.

Hannah: What about The New Recorder?

Csarina: Well that would just be the local news.

Hannah: Is it free? A pound? No, I’m good. And The Sun is just boring. Oh, here’s The Guardian.

Csarina: Yeah, but it was like two pounds.

Hannah: Why is it so expensive? This is why people can’t get news, ’cause no one’s gonna pay two pounds for that. Yeah, do you want The Financial Times? Imagine buying The Financial Times.

Csarina: Nah, it’s too big.

Hannah: It’s a bit too big. Fair enough.

Csarina: Okay.

Hannah: The Daily Mail seems good. So MPT. Is The Daily Mail …

Csarina: But it’s cheap and it looks-

Hannah: Yeah, it’s cheap. It looks good. Yeah, let’s get it.

Csarina: We ended up choosing The Daily Mail, brought it back to school and spent some time looking at it.

Hannah: Can Meghan really be filming a Scottish Widow ad-

Csarina: I think it’s talking about how Meghan’s meant to be like a princess of sorts, or a Duchess, now and she was meant to give up acting. So it’s a bit weird for her to be playing such a role in an ad for-

Hannah: Right. And then second page, “Babies are still not safe at scandal-hit NHS maternity unit.”

Csarina: Just an observation, it’s a lot of information.

Hannah: Yeah, it’s a bit of a mess. It’s not really pleasant to read.

Csarina: It is very overwhelming. From something you can look at on your phone that is a couple of paragraphs and easy to read, to this, which is a double-page spread.

Csarina: And they typed it vertically. I need to read across the page. I have to read down, and there’s a gap, and then it’s down, and it’s a gap, and then … I’m not gonna read any of those columns. It’s so long. What do you think, Hannah?

Hannah: 18 is too many for a story that could probably be condensed into a single page.

Csarina: Okay. All right. So there’s adverts right in the middle of our story.

Hannah: But I suppose you’d get that on your phone, as well if you’re on a website. There’s always adverts.

Csarina: But this is taking up like more than a quarter of the first page. And then there’s another advert on the next page.

Hannah: And there’s also kind of… It takes away from the story.

Csarina: Yeah, so something interesting I noticed is whenever there was a point they wanted to make about the story, they would use very strong and opinionated words. Like talking about Brexit, they used words like “doomsday,” or “apocalyptic.” You know, it’s like stuff out of a movie. It’s very opinionated. Most of the news is very opinionated. There you go again, another example of dramatic language. So this page headline is “The Final Betrayal.” Oh, just the layout of the page. Oh my gosh.

Csarina: So, the front cover is suggesting that she’s breaking the rules somehow, going against her role because she’s not supposed to be acting.

Hannah: And just the way… where it says, “Can Meghan REALLY …”

Csarina: Really.

Hannah: Really is capitalized.

Csarina: Yeah, really is capitalized.

Hannah: It’s like they’re outraged that she’s doing it.

Csarina: And then the moment we turn to the spread, it changes to, “Remind you of someone? Meghan, the hooded beauty.” And the first sentence is, “she looks like the iconic hooded figure from the Scottish Widows adverts.”

Csarina: Wow.

Hannah: And even the line underneath it, “Meghan Markle is not shooting a commercial here.” So they just completely-

Csarina: Online equivalent, the physical equivalent of click-bait.

Hannah: Yeah.

Csarina: It literally click-baited us.

Hannah: From 2015!

Csarina: 2015! So it’s completely misleading. That’s amazing.

Hannah: Crazy.

Csarina: That’s why we pay seventy five pence. If I have to, pay two pounds for The Guardian to get accurate news.

Hannah: It is.

Csarina: It is. That was on the front page. It says the female section. They have a section for-

Hannah: A lot of fashion. A lot about being a mother.

Csarina: Childcare and stuff like that.

Hannah: Home.

Csarina: Budgeting.

Hannah: Buying stuff.

Csarina: Cleaning products.

Hannah: A set of gorgeous gifts-

Csarina: Gifts for under five pounds.

Hannah: So after doing this experiment of going out and finding a newspaper, buying it, and reading it together, how do you feel about it?

Csarina: I’ve learned I’m not going to buy Daily Mail. That’s bit biased, but I’d rather just stick to online news. Headlines were too big. They were really obnoxious, as well.

Hannah: Just being overloaded with information. There’s too much.

Csarina: Yeah. It’s a big pile of adverts in between the stories. It’s not really pleasing to the eye, and it’s expensive. I would not spend 70p on that, I’m sorry.

Hannah: Difficult to read, as well. I mean you go from story to story and nothing is really in any type of organized way. The biggest issue we had was the Meghan Markle story.

Csarina: Online, if I see something that’s click-bait, I know it’s click-bait because it’s from an unreliable source. Like it’s usually from like this really small, independent news companies, or those companies that when you click on them you get a virus or something. This is The Daily Mail. Like it’s so widely recognized, I wouldn’t expect that to be click-bait.