Teaching Technology Today

Blog 2 – January 29, 2012

“Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV)” (Prensky, Part 1).  Reading this statistic is just ridiculous, but I find it completely believable! Part of me is embarrassed to be a part of this generation, but even though I feel like I have spent way too many hours in front of different screens, I have also spent a sufficient amount of time reading actual books.  When I was growing up, I would get grounded from reading – but it wasn’t because we didn’t have technology.  My house has always had at least one computer and two televisions.  I am definitely a digital native – and this will help me connect with my students.

Because my students will be digital natives as well, I will be able to incorporate digital literacies into my classroom seamlessly.  I loved the assignment that was described in Zac Chase and Diana Laufenberg’s article, “Digital Literacies.”  The class had to record interviews and edit them on the computer so that they could be posted on the school’s website.  That is just one wonderful way to include the digital world in the classroom.  I would also love to have a blog or website where the students could raise their voices and opinions about various things.  Digital literacy is more than just reading and writing on the computer and I would love to be able to incorporate as many avenues as possible.

“Digital literacy, itself, is not enough preparation, however, for our students to thrive in today’s global, information- driven world. Students must also acquire the skills of digital inquiry” (Stripling, 16).  They may know how to do things on the computer, but can they analyze the relationships and express the connections between all that they see?  They need to be able to contextualize, focus, and question.  I love the Stripling Model of Inquiry (pg. 17) – it would give a back bone to lesson preparation.

Even though I may have grown up at the same time in similar family environments as my peers, I still think about things and am more confortable with technology than many people my own age.  With so many people growing up in different situations and with different exposure to technology, it can be hard to teach such a wide variety of students. According to Prensky, “The environment and culture in which people are raised affects and even determines many of their thought processes” (Prensky, Part 2).  So not only have people experienced different things that would give them different schemas, they actually think through things differently!  Studies show that it takes a lot of time and concentration to change how you think.

All in all, I loved reading about the different uses and problems with digital literacy and thinking through how I could use it in my own classroom.

Reference:

Prensky, Mark. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” From On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001).

Prensky, Mark. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?” From On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001).

Stripling, Barbra. “Teaching Students to Think in the Digital Environment: Digital Literacy and Digital Inquiry.” From School Library Monthly: Volume XXVI, Number 8. April 2010.

Chase, Zac and Laufenberg, Diana. “Digital Literacy: Embraing the Squishiness of Digital Literacy.” From Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 54(7) April 2011.