Saturday, January 24, 2009
Jukes article
I really found the article "DK (Digital Kids) Learning in the New Digital Landscape very interesting. I definitely consider myself a "digital immigrant", learning to survive in this new digital world. As a high school teacher, I often see the way kids act, interact with others and respond to teachers and authority figures and often wonder to myself, "What is wrong with them?" This article really made me step back and think and start to realize why! They have been brought up in a totally different world, then I did growing up in the 80's. I grew up with Atari, a controller that had a joystick and 1 button to fire! I did evolve to Nintendo but once I reached college and Playstation came about I hit my limit. The Playstation remote with 8 buttons blew my mind! I take my students to a computer lab to do a research project and in 10 minutes they have printed out more information then I would have gathered in 3 night long trips to the library when I went to college! It would have taken me more than 10 minutes to figure out how to hook up the damn microfilm just to find one article! How about cell phones? What would kids do with out them? Have you ever taken one away from a student? They are like crack babies without them! They shake and shiver and cry until they get it back. It took me long enough but I finally have learned to text message! It is a different world now and it was interesting contrast to learning styles and opened my eyes more to my students and hopefully how to get through to them better.
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Hi Mike,
ReplyDeleteSuccinctly, I share your same sentiments. I have two young sons. It just continually amazes me how technologically savvy they are.
In navigating thru the numerous web sites, and in learning new applications, I'm embarrassed to say, I often need some form of assistance from my boys. Without fail, they quickly have a resolution. As it relates to all of the gadgets out there, I feel like a dinosaur!
When it comes to those videos games, forget about it. We have the WII system - for the life of me, I can not beat them. I ask them how do you learn all of the trickery/moves, they laugh and say come on dad, it's easy. Whenever I purchase a new game, they grasp it right away without reading the instructions.
Today's generation is in deed "digital learners".
As adults, in order to keep up to speed, we must treat technology as a never ending learning process - make it hobby.
Your analysis is excellent, Mike.
ReplyDeleteAtari! That brings me back...
And as Ron said, we must treat technology (along with everything else) as a ongoing learning journey. We will never know *everything*, but we can try to better ourselves as educators by being aware.
Thanks for posting!
Let me know when and if you plan on utalizing technology in your Health Class. I wanted to try with my Health classes and only showed them a few videos from youtube and told them about my blog. Hopefully next year I'll have more chances. If you can find creative ways to implement Wii into class somehow, that would be a great way to get the students' attention.
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