eMigrant

Trying to reach a digital generation in the classroom? How about end of topic revisions being colourful ICT quizzes that can be displayed on the projector or smartboard?

On the site for MyStudiyo you can create good looking quizzes that could be done as a class activity at the end of a topic or for general revision. It is a new way of doing an old thing.

“Without student interest, learning proceeds at a very slow pace, if at all.” says Margaret Riel in New Designs for Connected Teaching and Learning.

So for some level of novelty in informal assessment, have a look into doing your own ICT quizzes.

While I’ve been reading the blogs of Finch08 about needing to catchup with NetGen and Lindar4 about whether our digital generation will become so immersed in technology they will lose their desire to write with pens I have been considering my own position … am I a donkey on the technology freeway?

Ponder on these findings from Free Press Release for “Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation” by Dr Larry Rosen -

‘Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million consumers. The telephone took only 20 years, television 13, cell phones 12, and cable TV 7. This generation has seen the Internet, iPods and texting reach 50 million users in only 4 years while MySpace amassed 125 million users in just 2.5 years and YouTube in just 1 year. Parents look at this world as a dizzying onslaught of new media while their kids thrive on the pace of change.’

But trying to be part of this fast paced new world with its new technologies may not always have the desired effect.

Today’s SMH reports in ‘Kids to parents: get out of my face(book)‘ that some kid’s find having their parents on Facebook a bit too much to bear. Private things told to virtual strangers is ok, but having your parents find out is not on!

Each generation has something ‘to bear’, be it war, politics, Elvis Presley or rock’n'roll. For those of us not part of the Net Generation we owe it to ourselves and our children to get on the technology freeway to one extent or another. As parents we want our children to be safe and to be involved in their lives in a healthy way. As teachers we need to encourage thinking skills in our students and make use of technology in the classroom to that end.

Even as a ‘donkey’ on the technology freeway, be encouranged we can still learn and do new things.

‘Information technology woven through your life’, children spending three times as much time using technology as they do reading, teenagers spending 3.5 hours per day with digital media, getting connected, digital literacy,parallel processing and multitasking …. the life of our digital generation is so full of technology it makes you wonder if they have time for a life/technology balance (refer to D&J Oblinger, Is It Age or IT?).

One parent didn’t think their child had found the balance … so took matters (and the Xbox) into his own hands …

Read more here …

I’ve come across an education blog site with videos, edublogs.tv . This particular link is about a Palm Pilot project – “Students and Teachers Learning Together”. This video with Year 8 students and their teachers gives an insight to how technology can be used in the classroom to engage students and enhance learning. Worth watching!

I really liked reading this article by Marc Prensky (PDF warning)

because it challenged me to bridge the gap between my own understanding of technology and that of the students I’ll be teaching. I’m very much a digital immigrant! With all that being said, the technology needs to be relevant to the curriculum as well as interesting. So many challenges lie ahead.