I am thinking about the prompt from Week 5… “ Marc Prensky, a pioneer in digital technology educational writing and research, coined the phrases "digital immigrant" and "digital native". Which category do you feel you belong? Times have changed over the past ten years and for our students or our own children, this technology thing is nothing new to them. What category do you see your schools falling into? Are they embracing new technology or are they a little slower in their approach?”
These are some really interesting questions and things that I am pondering out loud with my students. I teach a literature unit that focuses on technology and progress. We look at the effect of technology on our lives and read early science fiction writings that bring up issues like the morality of technology (for example, Shelly’s Frankenstein and the novel, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Both of these works address the idea that technological progress comes with a price) I think, as compelling as the literature is, the most interesting thing I have learned while teaching this unit is that I am definitely a “digital immigrant” in its native land! One of the introductory exercises we do when I am beginning this unit is to write down what kinds of technological advancements we have seen in our lifetimes. As I do this with my students, I realize that nearly everything has changed since I was a kid. I think I addressed this a bit in one of my first blogs… but it is such a profound thing to me that the simple, every-day technology we take for granted didn’t even exist when I was a kid. Something as simple as remote controls for the TV. I mean, we had the good old dial. Yet, my son, who is two years old next month, can manipulate the remote control on the TV to turn on his DVD (Curious George) and he also knows how to use a cell phone and a computer. These are things I found challenging as an adult. He can’t even speak in full sentences yet he knows that if he presses the red button on the remote, his cartoon will come on.
Schools are another thing. I am lucky enough to be in a school district that desires to be advanced, technologically. The only thing is that the way some define what is current/appropriate in terms of the acquisition and use of technology is totally up to interpretation. Some think that having computer labs is enough. More than a few of our classrooms are equipped with Smart Boards (which I think is probably more than many have… although my room doesn’t have one! L) The problem is that a lab does not service an entire school at once. As a language arts/humanities teacher, I could use the lab every class period in a way that would move the curriculum forward leaps and bounds. But I can’t… There are almost 500 kids in school and only 30 or so computers for use during any given block. What I can do in school is pretty limited. Webquests, podcasts, blogs and Web2.0 applications are wonderful tools and I know how to use them but we don’t have the basics to allow for the regular application of these wonderful tools.
Then there is the issue of social networks and ipods and cell phones. There are rules against everything that the kids use every day. In school, I feel like we ask them to process information in a certain way but when they leave the building a giant world of tools and information and media sweeps them away. We can’t compete… we should be joining… but we can’t. Sometimes I feel like I am looking through a window into my students’ worlds and I can’t join them because I am an “immigrant” in their world and I don’t have the resources their world provides. It will change. I just wonder if it will change fast enough to keep up with what has to be done to give our kids the guidance to use their tools in powerful and discerning ways.
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