This chapter focuses on students and learning.Marc Prensky created the analogy of students as digital natives in a world where technology surrounds them. Adults are considered digital immigrants who have to work at being comfortable in this land. I really like that idea. One of Prensky's points is that the students we are teaching now are not the same people that our educational system was designed to serve. He says that there has been a radical change in our students. Students are thinking and processing information in a totally different way than students before them. I agree with this wholeheartedly!
I'd also like to add that this difference includes a lack of urgency in attending to information. Students are so used to being able to type a few words in google and finding the information that they need when they need it, they have little respect for being attentive to directions or information when it is delivered. They want to be able to disengage and then go back and find out what they missed with a click of a button. This is problematic for most every teacher. Stand and deliver teaching is now being supplemented with podcasts and various types of recordings. This gives the student the chance to go back and get the information that they missed the first time.
I see the emergence of authentic challenges as the way to create an urgency for the information that you want to impart. Students will rarely "study" for tests. They want a chance to pursue interesting information and create their answers to big questions. So, the challenge is to harness this interest in a way that embraces our curriculum while allowing them to express themselves in a unique way that include multi-media.
Customizing every part of their lives seems to be the quest of the current middle schooler. Having their own ring tone, home page, pictures, song list, etc It makes sense that they are searching for a way to customize their school experience.
It is encouraging to see what a large percentage of American households have computers and broadband access to the internet. We just need to come up with ways to help student stop "hanging out" on the internet and start creating their understanding of the world, actively.
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I think that the key is: If we don't change our ways to meet the needs of the students we have now, we run the risk of becoming fundamentally irrelevant to them.
ReplyDeleteOr ...Teach the kids you have now, not the ones you used to have, wish you had or want to have. Can't remember where I got that quote.
Ann