Life was bacalao - life is Internet. Should we develop a fishing culture mentality in schools?

“Life is bacalao ” are famous words from Icelandic literature that describe well times in the country’s fishing villages for the earlier half of the 20th century when bacalao, which was mostly sold to Spain, was Iceland’s main export (Valdimarsson & Bjarnason, 1997). During that time industrialization had hardly reached Iceland but the economy was based on fishing and primitive life stock farming. Toffler (1980) predicted the coming of the third wave that would hit the world after the second wave of industrialization. According to him we were altering our “info-sphere” fundamentally and adding new ways of communication to the social system (p. 183). The emerging info-sphere made the second wave mass media, post office, and telephone look hopelessly primitive. We would have new ways to think about problems, synthesize information, and anticipate the results of actions, thereby possibly transforming our minds. In addition, the role of literacy would very likely change dramatically. With the advent of the Internet, mobile computers and telecommunication, Toffler’s predictions are now being rapidly realized for large populations across the Western world. The Internet has become “the bacalao” for many Icelanders, not the least the youngest generation affecting life patterns and thinking. But what concrete evidence is there for these changes and how should schools and educators react?

In our presentation, we will describe the results of a qualitative study of the Internet use of Icelandic children and adolescents that has been conducted with the help of graduate students at Iceland University of Education that are also teachers in schools across Iceland. Data was gathered among 232 Icelandic children and teenagers in 2001 to 2003 and new data gathering will take place in spring of 2005. See description of the research method by Jakobsdóttir (2004), and on the project web, http://soljak.khi.is/netnot. The study showed young people visiting 140 webs, and has, e.g., revealed interesting trends regarding communication. In 2003, MSN and blogging became very popular among teenagers, particularly girls and was then the most frequently recorded activity, used by 17% of those observed whereas in 2001and 2002 only one student was observed using MSN. MSN-users had the program operating in the background while engaging in other types of computer-related activities, communicating, e.g., with sick classmate at home (while at school), relative abroad, or a parent at work. Also, in 2003, 10% of the students were observed using blog (http://www.blogger.com), especially older students, but no students in 2001 and 2003. We will describe further where and how children and adolescents are “fishing” on the Net, what their “catches” are, and what they appear to be gaining from the experience? How do they seem to be acquiring multiliteracy (based on framework used by Chandler-Olcott og Mahar, 2003)? Finally, we will discuss how educators can take advantage of these new types of net-“fishing” and processing. What can be done in schools to make the effects of Internet use on our young generation positive and/or minimize potential negative effects? The ocean presents dangers of drowning and shipwreck and catches are sometimes meager, but the advantages for the community and individuals outweigh the dangers – people learn to swim, build better ships, work on accident prevention, and quality control of products.