This blog has been created to communicate articles and information for the Summer Teacher Training Institute. Please read the starred articles; pick at least three other selections based upon your interests. If you find other interesting readings, please let us know and we will add them to the list.
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Monday, April 30, 2007
**Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants/Millenials
Please read following articles and comment on the question(s):
Are you a "digital native" or "digital immigrant?"
Marc Prensky, while educated in the areas of digital technology. is not educated in the areas of science and cannot quote scientific findings without explaining their content. When he quotes Dr. Bruce Berry that "different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures" he misinterprets this to support his thesis that computer gaming is the way to teach students. I cannot help but note the conflict of interest Prensky has in trying to back this thesis. This is similar to M&M/Mars supporting scientific reasearch showing that chocolate is good for you.
That said, I have to agree that today's students are not the people our current system was designed to teach. Yes, their neural net has developed superhighways supporting a Nintendoesque skill set, while the portion of the net that supports reading, logic , mathematical rigor, and variable analysis resemble the impressions of Vibram soles on the damp surface of a secluded national park. All this means is that today's student needs to see the need for legacy skills in a digital world. The net is still mainly text. Reading, frequently at a high grade level, is still an essential skill for those who are digital natives. Yes, your professor may just read from the textbook that they wrote, but that doesn't mean that you can Wii equally good or better sources from the game you're playing on your laptop. Students still have to read to access those sources wirelessly delivered to their desktop. Once they get them, they have to ask themselves if what they are learning is going to be on the test that wise sage on the stage is going to give them at mid-term. Listening skills are also important.
Given Prensky's point of view, it seems like we should believe that our students are adept at figuring out which block will shower them with coins but might not be able to figure out from a graph whether their variables are directly or inversly proportional. To believe that our students are limited in their thinking ability to only deducing what we have planted for them to find reduces them to the level of Tian Tian the panda looking for treats within his enclosure at the National Zoo. Ideally students should be able to create solutions that are more complex than this and that is not possible within the confines of a digital game.
No matter what Prensky says, our students need to develop reading, writing, math, logic, and inquiry skills. Yes, our students neural nets are not as developed in these areas as they should be, but, they need to have as great a facility in legacy skills as they do in new skills. I can text, video conference, VOIP, e-mail, digitally photograph and stylize images, not to mention pop a few flares and pull my f-18 into a high g inverted turn to avoid a heat-seeking missile. I am a digital immigrant and I believe I must expect my students to have an equal facility in legacy skills as they have with their XBox.
In answer to the questions on the web: I am a Digital Immigrant, my grandchildren are Millennials, and my children are Gen-Xer Digital Immigrants.
Thoughts on the articles:
So - the Internet should change education. But what is its best use to serve what purposes? The articles are interesting but could do a lot more to critically analyze the question.
Great ideas and tools in education have always challenged us and their application both helping in many ways and also usually coming up short of their promise. Not too long ago, TV was thought of as one of the most powerful educational developments ever. When I was in elementary school, a person once told me that TV would render schools obsolete and, instead, TV now often shows a negative correlation with education performance. I tend to think that the problem with TV shortfall is not the technology itself but rather a widespread belief about learning that limits its application.
Now we have the Internet. How will this be more successful than TV? The most important factor developing the Internet as a viable tool for learning may be what we as individuals believe about learning. This is because our beliefs will determine the structure of the resource. I began testing this idea when I surveyed over 1000 quality teachers from across that US in 1998 and asked them what they though the most powerful contribution of the internet would be for supporting student learning. The answer by 80% involved access to information. Do these answers stem from a common belief about what learning is? What is your response to the question?
Personally, while I admit that almost any communication involves transfer and use of information and that information is very important, I cannot believe that access to information has much to do with the ultimate promise of the Internet. I prefer to think about possibilities such as opportunities to find or ask interesting questions, explore ideas, debate, develop and use new abilities, publish, say what I really think and ask questions that push the envelope, have my ideas really challenged, manipulate ideas and information, break out of the classroom, and invent new ideas.
The bottom line is that quality learning comes from quality cognitive engagement. Some ideas in the readings reflect values beyond just “information.” One intriguing resource to me was in the article by Oblinger that discussed The Valley of the Shadow web site. On the surface this resource seems to try to provide information in a way that learners can use the information to build personal understanding trough research and critical thinking.
Perhaps we always need to ask if our goal is to learn information or to learn from information. Would the answer effect how we build resources to use the digital highway? How far can the internet go to support understanding?
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Marc Prensky, while educated in the areas of digital technology. is not educated in the areas of science and cannot quote scientific findings without explaining their content. When he quotes Dr. Bruce Berry that "different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures" he misinterprets this to support his thesis that computer gaming is the way to teach students. I cannot help but note the conflict of interest Prensky has in trying to back this thesis. This is similar to M&M/Mars supporting scientific reasearch showing that chocolate is good for you.
That said, I have to agree that today's students are not the people our current system was designed to teach. Yes, their neural net has developed superhighways supporting a Nintendoesque skill set, while the portion of the net that supports reading, logic , mathematical rigor, and variable analysis resemble the impressions of Vibram soles on the damp surface of a secluded national park. All this means is that today's student needs to see the need for legacy skills in a digital world. The net is still mainly text. Reading, frequently at a high grade level, is still an essential skill for those who are digital natives. Yes, your professor may just read from the textbook that they wrote, but that doesn't mean that you can Wii equally good or better sources from the game you're playing on your laptop. Students still have to read to access those sources wirelessly delivered to their desktop. Once they get them, they have to ask themselves if what they are learning is going to be on the test that wise sage on the stage is going to give them at mid-term. Listening skills are also important.
Given Prensky's point of view, it seems like we should believe that our students are adept at figuring out which block will shower them with coins but might not be able to figure out from a graph whether their variables are directly or inversly proportional. To believe that our students are limited in their thinking ability to only deducing what we have planted for them to find reduces them to the level of Tian Tian the panda looking for treats within his enclosure at the National Zoo. Ideally students should be able to create solutions that are more complex than this and that is not possible within the confines of a digital game.
No matter what Prensky says, our students need to develop reading, writing, math, logic, and inquiry skills. Yes, our students neural nets are not as developed in these areas as they should be, but, they need to have as great a facility in legacy skills as they do in new skills. I can text, video conference, VOIP, e-mail, digitally photograph and stylize images, not to mention pop a few flares and pull my f-18 into a high g inverted turn to avoid a heat-seeking missile. I am a digital immigrant and I believe I must expect my students to have an equal facility in legacy skills as they have with their XBox.
In answer to the questions on the web: I am a Digital Immigrant, my grandchildren are Millennials, and my children are Gen-Xer Digital Immigrants.
Thoughts on the articles:
So - the Internet should change education. But what is its best use to serve what purposes? The articles are interesting but could do a lot more to critically analyze the question.
Great ideas and tools in education have always challenged us and their application both helping in many ways and also usually coming up short of their promise. Not too long ago, TV was thought of as one of the most powerful educational developments ever. When I was in elementary school, a person once told me that TV would render schools obsolete and, instead, TV now often shows a negative correlation with education performance. I tend to think that the problem with TV shortfall is not the technology itself but rather a widespread belief about learning that limits its application.
Now we have the Internet. How will this be more successful than TV? The most important factor developing the Internet as a viable tool for learning may be what we as individuals believe about learning. This is because our beliefs will determine the structure of the resource. I began testing this idea when I surveyed over 1000 quality teachers from across that US in 1998 and asked them what they though the most powerful contribution of the internet would be for supporting student learning. The answer by 80% involved access to information. Do these answers stem from a common belief about what learning is? What is your response to the question?
Personally, while I admit that almost any communication involves transfer and use of information and that information is very important, I cannot believe that access to information has much to do with the ultimate promise of the Internet. I prefer to think about possibilities such as opportunities to find or ask interesting questions, explore ideas, debate, develop and use new abilities, publish, say what I really think and ask questions that push the envelope, have my ideas really challenged, manipulate ideas and information, break out of the classroom, and invent new ideas.
The bottom line is that quality learning comes from quality cognitive engagement. Some ideas in the readings reflect values beyond just “information.” One intriguing resource to me was in the article by Oblinger that discussed The Valley of the Shadow web site. On the surface this resource seems to try to provide information in a way that learners can use the information to build personal understanding trough research and critical thinking.
Perhaps we always need to ask if our goal is to learn information or to learn from information. Would the answer effect how we build resources to use the digital highway? How far can the internet go to support understanding?
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