Janis Peacock Bellack

Bio: Janis Peacock Bellack is an academic researcher from University of Kentucky. The author has contributed to research in topics: Video production & Projective test. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 3 publications receiving 543 citations. Previous affiliations of Janis Peacock Bellack include Medical University of South Carolina.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Abstract: It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of education in the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20 th century.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?

Abstract: Part 2 of Prensky’s paper exploring the differences between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”. In this second part the author presents evidence to support these differences from neurology, social psychology and from studies done on children using games for learning.

Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics

Abstract: As social network sites like MySpace and Facebook emerged, American teenagers began adopting them as spaces to mark identity and socialize with peers. Teens leveraged these sites for a wide array of everyday social practices - gossiping, flirting, joking around, sharing information, and simply hanging out. While social network sites were predominantly used by teens as a peer-based social outlet, the unchartered nature of these sites generated fear among adults. This dissertation documents my 2.5-year ethnographic study of American teens' engagement with social network sites and the ways in which their participation supported and complicated three practices - self-presentation, peer sociality, and negotiating adult society. My analysis centers on how social network sites can be understood as networked publics which are simultaneously (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice. Networked publics support many of the same practices as unmediated publics, but their structural differences often inflect practices in unique ways. Four properties - persistence, searchability, replicability, and scalability - and three dynamics - invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, and the blurring of public and private - are examined and woven throughout the discussion. While teenagers primarily leverage social network sites to engage in common practices, the properties of these sites configured their practices and teens were forced to contend with the resultant dynamics. Often, in doing so, they reworked the technology for their purposes. As teenagers learned to navigate social network sites, they developed potent strategies for managing the complexities of and social awkwardness incurred by these sites. Their strategies reveal how new forms of social media are incorporated into everyday life, complicating some practices and reinforcing others. New technologies reshape public life, but teens' engagement also reconfigures the technology itself.

Video Games and Spatial Cognition

Abstract: Video game enthusiasts spend many hours at play, and this intense activity has the potential to alter both brain and behavior. We review studies that investigate the ability of video games to modify processes in spatial cognition. We outline the initial stages of research into the underlying mechanisms of learning, and we also consider possible applications of this new knowledge. Several experiments have shown that playing action games induces changes in a number of sensory, perceptual, and attentional abilities that are important for many tasks in spatial cognition. These basic capacities include contrast sensitivity, spatial resolution, the attentional visual field, enumeration, multiple object tracking, and visuomotor coordination and speed. In addition to altering performance on basic tasks, playing action video games has a beneficial effect on more complex spatial tasks such as mental rotation, thus demonstrating that learning generalizes far beyond the training activities in the game. Far transfer of this sort is generally elusive in learning, and we discuss some early attempts to elucidate the brain functions that are responsible. Finally, we suggest that studying video games may contribute not only to an improved understanding of the mechanisms of learning but may also offer new approaches to teaching spatial skills.