Spotlight on the 1995
SIGTel
Online Award Winners
Taming the Tube: Television
Watching Habits
of 10–12 year olds
Dalia
Naujokaitis
St. Elizabeth
School
893 Admiral Ave.
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 2V4 Canada
Paragraph Summary of
Lesson Plan
Taming the Tube is a research activity that allows students to
measure a behaviour
in which they have all participated: television watching. Students
will be able
to compare their television watching habits and attitudes with those
of other
students their age. By monitoring their weekly television watching
habits and
completing a questionnaire (TV WATCHERS ANONYMOUS) the students will
try to
find out the following:
- How much television is watched per week by 10–12 year olds?
- Who watches more television, girls or boys?
- Are there any geographical differences?
- What are the favourite television shows of this age group?
- Does television influence the attitudes and lifestyles of
10–12 year
olds?
Objectives of
Lesson
This activity will provide students with opportunities to carry out
real
research. They will learn to
- Collect, organize and analyze real data
- Make predictions, to formulate and test out hypotheses
- Use databases and spreadsheets as tools in research process
- Analyze data by determining the mean, mode, median, and range of
findings
- Use telecommunications: e–mail,terminal software commands,
uploading/downloading
- Locate research team schools using latitude and longitude
Hardware/Software
Needed
Computer with modem and telecommunication software
Telecommunications
Resources Needed
or Recommended
Access to Internet e–mail
Importance (Role) of
Telecommunications
in this Plan
Taming the Tube relies heavily on telecommunications to make it a
success.
While students have frequently monitored their television watching
habits as
part of media studies or mathematics, they have done so only at the
school or
classroom level. The availability of electronic communication has
broken down
the barriers of time and space. Classes across the globe can carry out
the same
research and share their findings by e–mail. This electronic
connectivity
is at the heart of this project. At present there are over 290 classes
participating
with representation from New Zealand, Canada, the United States,
England, Scotland,
Australia, Japan, Estonia, and Germany.
Curriculum Area(s)
Involved
Mathematics, science, geography, media literacy, and research
skills
Grade Level(s)
Targeted
Grades 4–7 (ages 10–12).
Class Management
Strategies
This is an individual and group activity. Students monitor their
television
watching individually at home. The collected data is then collated and
analyzed
either by the whole class or cooperative teams. Sharing of findings by
e–mail
can be done through cooperative teams so that all students become
familiar with
e–mail procedures and netiquette.
Class Time
Required
About 5 hours in total.
Print Materials
Needed
Teacher–devised form for recording TV watching times, world
map
Procedures/Activities
- Participating classes register with Taming the Tube Project
sending their
latitude and longitude coordinates
- Taming the Tube Project sends the e–mail and global address
coordinates
to all participants. All participants are subscribed to TAMETUBE
electronic
mailing listr (part of Canada’s Schoolnet).
- Classes locate research team classes on world map.
- Participating classes send HELLO Letter to TAMETUBE electronic
mailing list.
Hello letter includes the following information: location of school,
number
of television channels available, number of daylight hours,
population density
of area, a short description of community. The information given in
the letter
can be used as a guide for predicting television watching
differences according
to geographical location, # of daylight hours etc. Predictions are
recorded
and shared with the electronic mailing list.
- Participating classes prepare a log book for keeping track of
individual
television watching for the chosen seven–day cycle.
- Each student predicts how much time he/she spends watching
television in
a week, how much the class will watch on the average, who will watch
more
girls or boys.
- Each student keeps a log of television watched during the agreed
seven–day
cycle and adding up daily times watched ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST FIVE
MINUTES.
- At the end of the monitored week, the teacher and students
cooperatively
summarize the results for the ENTIRE CLASS, for the GIRLS and for
the BOYS
by noting the RANGE, MEAN, MEDIAN and MODE for each set of data.
(This is
an excellent time to use databases and spreadsheets for keeping
track of results
and for doing statistical analysis and graphing).
- Students record and collate database of favourite programs.
- Students fill out TV WATCHERS ANONYMOUS survey. (This survey has
been cooperatively
devised by my Grade 6 students. It is comprised of 20 questions and
is too
long to be included in this application, but is available on
request. The
survey looks at student attitudes towards violence on TV, role
models, influence
of TV on clothing, attitudes etc.)
- All gathered information is shared with all participants through
the electronic
mailing list. The hypotheses are tested out with real data.
Differences can
be noted, analyzed, and explained. Results are published
online.
Method(s) for Evaluating
Student
Achievement of Objectives
- Checklist for telecommunication skills: ability to use
e–mail, uploading
and downloading of information, logging on to system
- Checklist for mathematical analysis: understanding and applying
the concepts
of mode, median, mean, range to television data
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