Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

I never really thought of it in these terms before this week, but I am a "digital immigrant." I grew up in a world where the microchip had not yet infiltrated nearly every facet of everyday life. Heck, I used to have to get off the couch, walk across the room and turn the knob to select one of five available TV channels. When I was in elementary school, I was instructed to sit still in my desk with both feet on the floor, read my textbooks, practice my multiplication tables and don't speak unless spoken to. Most of the time I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, but this I remember it as if it were yesterday:
"Six plus eight minus four times seven divided by 10...?" The words shoot out of Sr. Auleta's mouth like rounds from a machine gun. I close my eyes as the calculations churn in my brain (arithmetic is always easier when you close your eyes). The creaking floorboards of old Holy Redeemer School try their best to disrupt my concentration. I look up to find her right in front of my desk, staring at me through her half moon glasses, her Tau necklace dangling in front of her starched habit, waiting, hoping I would be unable to produce the correct answer.
I manage to squeak out a barely audible, "Seven?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?" she replies, clearly disappointed that she had lost this mathematical battle.
In order to assimilate into today's digital society, I have had to abandon many of my old, familiar ways of manipulating information. A few of the students (and many of the parents) in my school still struggle with technology basics, but most of them are "digital natives." They have never known a world without the Internet, iPods, cell phones and video games. Education researcher Marc Prensky cites studies which show that digital native students expect constant and ongoing interactivity, pay attention strategically, and use information selectively. In short, the traditional instruction model of Sr. Auleta's classroom may have worked for me, but it does not translate well to the digital native. Now I'm not suggesting that classroom instruction hasn't changed in the last 35-years, but I am saying it has not changed enough or in the right ways to accommodate today's learners. The question then becomes, do we as educators continue to force them to sit in their desk and read their texts, or are we willing to make the fundamental changes necessary to educate students in ways that match their experience?

I watched a video this week that I think anyone who is genuinely concerned about the future of education would find very intriguing. It featured a speech by Sir Ken Robinson delivered at the TED conference in 2006. According to its website, TED (short for Technology, Entertainment and Design) is an organization dedicated to Ideas Worth Spreading. The TEDTalks video series purports to provide, "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." A lofty goal to be sure, but this piece really hit the mark.

 
In addition to being witty and entertaining, Robinson delves into the importance of creativity and asks the question, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" His answer, of course, is yes they do and educational institutions need to change to meet the needs of today's students. I agree to an extent, but I hesitate to condemn all schools and all teachers. I would add one caveat. Yes, traditional public education systems tend to stifle creativity, but they don't have to.

There are four elements of the video that I found particularly insightful:

1. Relegating the creative arts to the bottom of the educational food chain is cross-cultural. Every nation on earth, according to Robinson, has an educational hierarchy that values math, language and science ahead of the arts. A sub-hierarchy also exists among arts programs that almost universally places visual art and music ahead of drama and dance. 
2. We have no idea what the future is going to be. We can try and identify trends, but nobody knows for sure even 5 years into the future. Public education came about during the Industrial Age and was designed to educate children for a very predictable future. Today, we are educating children for a future we cannot possibly predict. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children.
3. Creativity is the process of having an original thought that has value. Creativity is as important as literacy and should be treated as such. Creative children have no fear of being wrong, yet we have created an educational system where being wrong is the worst thing you can do. Therefore, we are educating our children out of creativity.
4. Intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. This concept of intelligence runs in stark contrast to the traditional purpose of public education which seems to be to produce university professors. We need to understand this concept if we are to educate intelligent people who can lead a future society that we may never see, but they will.

You've probably heard that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I would argue that doing the same old thing in only a slightly different way is equally futile. We can't keep making tiny incremental changes to the way we educate students and expect to keep pace with the rapidly changing digital world. It's time to make some bold leaps forward if we are to have any hope of preparing young people for the world they will soon inherit.

Technology Integration

The use of technology in education holds the promise of opening up previously inaccessible new worlds to millions of young learners. One of the items I investigated this week referred to technology as an "equity tool" in that it has the potential to even the playing field for all students if it is carefully, appropriately and successfully integrated into the curriculum. Doing that requires educators with the courage and ability to adopt a fundamentally different way of teaching. One example is the lesson plan “Smile” You’re on Central Camera which I found in a collection of resources devoted to integrating new technologies into the methods of education compiled on the InTime website.

Sample collage project

The concept is relatively simple - have students take pictures of school events and display them for the rest of the school community to see and enjoy. Previously, this project could have been accomplished by taking pictures with a film or Polaroid camera and pinning them up on a bulletin board in the hallway. By integrating technology, every student in the class can learn to use a digital camera, edit their pictures on a computer, use a software application to organize the pictures into a collage, be creative in the design of the presentation and post it on the school's website. This project also moves learning outside the confines of the classroom and involves the entire school community.

I could certainly adapt this lesson for use with my virtual school students. We regularly get together for school events, but because my students are located throughout the state of Wisconsin, the events rarely include all students. A project like this would allow all my students to see what their classmates are doing throughout the school year. And while most of my students are pretty technologically savvy since they take all of their classes online, this project incorporates some specific technologies that they don't ordinarily use and some skills that can be really useful both in their other classes and at home.

I admire teachers who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and acknowledge the fact that while conventional teaching methods still have a place in the classroom, they are not enough. You simply can't ignore the fact that the world has changed because of the impact of technology and we must integrate technology in education if our students are going to be prepared to be our future leaders.

Teaching 21st Century Skills

Sometimes inspiration comes from an unexpected combination of sources. This week, we read chapters in the text about supporting student creativity and problem solving. We also looked at a very interesting web resource called netTrekker. The common denominator is that both items relate to 21st Century Skills; the skills students today need to master in order to compete in the new and future global economy.

I didn't really make the connection between the two until I watched a YouTube video by the developer of netTrekker, Randy Wilhelm in which he talked about the value of using netTrekker to help teach 21st Century Skills. Two of the skills he specifically mentioned were creativity and problem solving.

Wilhelm points out that traditional learning tools like text books and memorization drills are still important, but they are not enough for today's students to compete in the digital information age. We live in a society in which we are constantly bombarded with information. In the old model, simply finding the information was the major challenge. Today's students, Wilhelm says, "...must learn how to garner the best information from numerous sources and then be savvy enough to evaluate and act upon what they have learned." As educators, it is our responsibility to ​teach our students the right questions to ask​, "and then give them the tools to effectively and efficiently find the best answers."

The text outlined several strategies for supporting, developing and assessing student creativity and problem solving, which are two of the 21st Century Skills. And netTrekker can certainly be used to support student learning in those areas. ​netTrekker's stated purpose is to harness the power of digital resources to identify information that is educationally relevant, current and accurate. The tools in netTrekker help students work creatively, think critically and collaborate in new ways and look beyond the way things have always been done.​ I like the fact that netTrekker is organized by subject area, grade level and readability level and that all the resources are educator reviewed for safety and accuracy.​ It also has an extensive read aloud feature to help make it accessible to students who struggle with reading or are not English proficient. ​

I think the topic of understanding and teaching 21st Century Skills is vitally important and I plan to continue to educate myself on this topic and look for ways to incorporate these concepts at my school. If you are interested, I recommend the book "The Global Achievement Gap" by Tony Wagner.