My last post on this topic mentioned the origins of this term. There are many educators that take issue with Prensky’s use of the digital native / digital immigrant concept. Jamie McKenzie http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html takes a severe swipe at Prensky. McKenzie’s comments are both logical and valid and well worth a read. Labelling an entire generation with sweeping statements seems to be what has raised the ire of many. However Prensky’s terms, and the term digital tourist (visits technology occasionally) still have merit.
I don’t view these as derogatory terms but rather as loose generalisations. Today’s youth are more digitally aware than previous generations. I base this purely on observation and experience. Each generation is different, society changes, people grow up with different experiences. This is why teaching methods must evolve to cater for new learning needs. Note: cater for not pander to. Educations must create meaningful learning experiences and an understanding of digital technologies and their usage is fundamental to 21st century schooling.
To come back to McKenzies thinking though, any lesson needs to be delivered using the appropriate context – sometimes that may be using digital tools and sometimes it may not.
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At NECC a person from the Microsoft School of the Future in Philadelphia was part of a keynote panel discussion. It sounded like lots of good goals were being set within an interesting project with the aim of promoting digital learning. As a result I was keen to find out more about this project.
Just watched a Jim Lehrer “News Hour” report on YouTube. What a disappointment, in ten minutes there was not one remotely futuristic educational task being undertaken at this school. It was a $65m school with lots of techno whistles and bells but in the classrooms . . .
Students sitting in rows with teacher out the front demonstrating.
Every laptop screen view revealed screens full of text.
Student: “Now I can type up assignments at home”
The Principal was quoted as stating that “the real innovation is creating a kind of Microsoft corporate culture in the school” YIKES !
Sure the infrastructure was great but the rest was very unimpressive, unless it’s time warped and this is a school of the future from 1987.
After 10 minutes my only thought was “these people just don’t get it”. It included a clip of Bill Gates saying that American high schools are obsolete and not teaching kids what they need – so their solution is this????
I hope tht the narrow focus in this program was due to it being a “news” item and thus focused more on the technology than the learning, even though it should not have been. Otherwise this is a prime example of how to spend lots of money on technology and get it wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mug66WnoSk
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