Change vs Continuity
I grew up in the in-between stages of the Digital Immigrants/Natives. Two years ago, before I started teaching I would tell you that I am a Digital Native. After being around my high school students I realized I am not up to speed at all. I mean, why do they always have to be stimulated by their ipods whenever they have to go to the bathroom. How can they listen to me with one ear while listening to music in another? Is that even possible? I tried it and it was actually hard. These last two years has really opened my eyes as to how much stimulus with technology our kids are getting each day. I mean, I have friends who I once in a while will play video games for a few hours straight, but I feel wiped out when I am done. My students can play for longer hours while texting, face booking, tweeting, listening to ipods, and doing their homework all at the same time. Well maybe not the homework part.

Prensky’s first article was interesting, but I heard it before. His second article I found very interesting because it had facts! There are actually studies that prove that our student’s brains are different than ours because of the technology they grew up with. “Children raised with the computer ‘think differently from the rest of us. They develop hypertext minds. They leap around. It’s as though their cognitive structures were parallel, not sequential.’” I like how he touched on the fact that attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, but it is due to the environment of the classroom. They are bored!

“The cognitive differences of the Digital Natives cry out for new approaches to education with a better fit.” Prensky then goes on to discuss how educators should try game-based teaching. I totally agree with this approach, but I feel that this game-based learning style is still in the hiding. I have no clue as to what company even makes “quality” games for a math class. If I did, I would have bought it the day I started teaching. I agree with everything that Prensky talks about in his articles, but I don’t think change will happen fast until the companies who make the games really try to market themselves to all teachers. They could do free demos at schools nation wide of what you can do in the classroom to get the Digital Immigrants to get on board with this new wave of learning. They need to get their product in the hands of the struggling educators.

My goals for this class is simple, I want to learn how to incorporate technology in my classroom. Not just any technology, but technology that will excite students to come to class every day. I want my students to be excited coming to math class! So far I have taken two other classes besides this one (and one on Wednesday) and I have had to create some kind of web site and a blog site that I am a little overwhelmed with which one I should use. I want to pick one that will be the most effective for next year.

I consider myself to be pretty technology savvy, but when it comes to using it in the classroom; I feel that I lack creativity. I am hoping that I can learn good techniques in this class that will help me better prepare my class for next year.

I know last week we were asked the question if we as teachers should change if our students are changing, and after thinking about it for a few days I think that all teachers need to adapt in some way or another. ~~Ryan

Advertisement