Q: Do you consider yourself a digital native, immigrant, or even an alien? Why
A: I would consider myself a digital native and someone who tries to continually foster this fact: I enjoy reading blogs and articles about new and updated technology and ways to improve processes. My dad has described me as a great, “consumer,” and I would totally agree. I always want the newest shiniest toy; be it a bike, phone, or car. Going back to school to become a teacher is a sure fire way to guarantee myself they large salary I’ll need to support my shopping desires.
Q: What experiences have you had with technology in the classroom either as a teacher or learner? Compare high school technology to college technology. Did it improve your learning experience?
A: Growing up I had wanted to be a basketball shoe designer for Nike. During my junior year of high school I came across a problem: I couldn’t draw. I ended up enrolling in my school’s drafting class and used CAD to compensate for my inability to draw even a straight line. I had a great drafting teacher and we had access to great programs I never saw in college (architecture and 3-d animating programs). I took two years of drafting in high school and was able to test out of my drafting class in college. I was surprised how little technology was offered to us in college: the Microsoft suite of programs, Mathcad, and Autocad were the only programs I used.
My big take away from my drafting lesson was that technology can sometimes fill a void in an individual’s skill set. My senior year I had to take a basic drawing class and not only was I unable to draw, I lacked the creativity necessary to excel in the class. Technology can help with skill deficiencies but is not as well suited at making up for a lack of an innate ability such as creativity.
Q: Has this article changed your mind about the use of technology in your future classroom? How might you incorporate it? What reluctance may you still have?
A: I had already been excited by the idea of using technology in the classroom. My initial apprehension was in the fact that I didn’t know how accessible the technology would be to my classroom. Hearing it will likely be available, and if not there are ways to go about obtaining it, was very exciting.
Prensky presented several examples of digital native lingo: “Www.hungry.com” and “Every time I go to school I have to power down.” Being able to keep up with the ever changing student lingo seems less important to me than with the actual technological interfaces the students use. While there will assuredly be significant overlap in knowing the lingo through becoming proficient in the technology, I don’t think it is a requisite of being an effective instructor. From our previous group discussions in classes, effective teachers make the teaching process personal. I don’t think a good teacher needs to understand today (and tomorrow’s) student’s “slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles,” but we do need to appreciate their individuality and keep an open mind to their forms of expression.
My reluctance to use technology is two-fold: not everything in life will be a game and there will be an initial investment of time and money to get the technology to be effective. I can see that teaching through video games could be an effective means of teaching, but at some point we have to allow students to see that the real world in which they will be working will not always be a game. Sometimes you have to learn things and apply knowledge in very dry formats. As a civil engineer I would sometimes get stuck doing monotonous tasks in the lab or running settlement analysis for hundreds of borings. Teacher will likely need to make a very significant personal commitment to using technology in the classroom, particularly digital immigrants. Prensky claims lesson planning it “took them twice as long as we had expected” when using technology. However, once this investment is made, the teaching can be more effective and will be able to be improved with less effort, basically the wheel does not have to be re-invented, but only reshaped a bit.
Hello Andy,
ReplyDeleteI find your conclusion that we cannot solely rely on technology as a teaching tool to be realistic and well said. I wonder to what extent you feel technology should be used as a teaching tool (i.e. 50% of the time). I agree that we shouldn't adopt student lingo into our own vocabulary, but I feel that it is important to be familiar with significance of these words as a tool to better understand students, fads, and the evolution of the English language. I completely agree that continuously upgrading your awareness of technology is important to maintain teaching efficiency and effectiveness.
-Sara
I think the percentage definitely depends on the subject: in my drafting class technology was about 90% of it. We learned the fundamentals of drafting with a pencil and straight edge then moved onto CAD. Math would likely be closer to 50/50. One issue with technology may be how we offer it to students outside the classroom. I would imagine problem sets at home would be almost completely the pencil and paper variety while daily interactions in the class would include a variety of technologies (smartboards, graphing calculators, and maybe even tablets).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree we should attempt to be familiar with these words; however, that is also a battle I have accepted I will likely not win. Between lesson planning, grading, teaching, and having some semblance of a life there is little time remaining for extensive research into teen fads, though I will make an attempt.
Thanks for the post Sara,
Andy
I would agree from the small amount of time (though it has undoubtedly been quality time) that you are an ideal consumer (fitting that you were the first person I know to acquire Google + haha). In your answer to question 2, you make the point that technology is able to compensate for the inadequacies of students. In your opinion, is that ability of technology to do that only fostering laziness and not mastering anything, since we know there is a technology that can do it for us?
ReplyDeleteTim, good point. I think in some ways technologies can become a crutch, but the fact they can fill specific and unique skill voids makes them well worth it in my mind. A more dramatic example than my drafting class would be someone like David Pick was describing today who was in a wheel chair and could only control it with their pinkie.
ReplyDeleteI think generalities can be very dangerous, so I think the implementation of, and technology ultimately selected (or not), should be very carefully considered.
Andy
I think you raise an intriguing point, Andy. Should teachers have some responsibility for teaching kids academic gravity -- in the sense that while gaming and simulations have their place, a whole number of jobs (anything I we never did in NYC or the Governor's office in MD) don't include gaming to any extent, and so the "fun" factor is something that we have to be cautious of? Maybe more people can chime into this concept, but if we want kids to really "get ahead" -- maybe we need to buckle down even more and limit tech to only highly organized circumstances. Maybe it's a worrisome trend that people want to use tech in "gonzo" ways...
ReplyDeleteI don't think we have to be cautious of fun, but I also don't think we should lead students to believe that everything in life will be fun or that they can do no wrong. Sometimes life, and work in particular, are not fun. The concept of doing mundane engineering of curb returns for 6 months straight was not fun, challenging, or rewarding, but I had to do it...until I quit my job and went back to school (for the first time).
ReplyDeleteI guess, I really don't have the full answer Shawn, hopefully that is where you come in!