Class+2+-+Jan+18th

Synthesis of Class 2 - Jan 18th

Part II of ** Understanding Digital Kids **

Once again the authors suggest there is a growing disconnect between the digital learners of today, and their more traditional teachers. They also maintain that if we fail to make changes to our current practice of teaching, we will fail our students. The following are their suggestions for change:

1. Teachers must catch up; they must familiarize themselves with what their subjects already know and do. 2. Teachers must teach to the whole mind; they must make an attempt to connect 3. Educators need to shift their instructional approach 4. We need to allow students to access information natively; we need to learn to use networking, cell phones, ipods etc as teaching tools. 5. We must let students collaborate 6. We need to let students create real-world digital products which require both digital and traditional skills not to mention creativity. 7. We must re-think assessment and evaluation

Reflection on Reading

I think that for the most part, the authors are making sound suggestions. For one thing, I completely agree that teachers of all ages should get with the program and start utilizing technology in the classroom. However, I think the authors make the mistake of painting all students with the same digital brush. Not all students are digital learners. Plenty of young people still read books (the paper kind). Plenty of students prefer to spend time outside rather than in front of their computers. Here is what I learned from one grade 10 class. - All of them had cell phones - Almost all of them used some kind of digital social networking - Not even 1/3 regularly played video games - Many needed guidance when performing searching on the internet for something more academic

My point is this: Digital learners are undoubtedly different from traditional learners BUT not every student is a digital learner.

One Student’s Perspective – YouTube video: Teenagers with Technology and Books media type="custom" key="5389935"

The World of Google

Today’s class was led by guest speaker, Richard Grignon. Richard, it turns out, is very much in love with Google and various Google products. So what better person to introduce us through the world of Google?

Among the topics covered were: Google Docs and Google sites. I was already familiar with Google Docs since I frequently use it to communicate with group members as we update our projects. Having said that, the use of the various forms was new to me and I intend to make use of them.

Interactive Response Systems Richard began by giving the class a quiz. To accomplish this, he used an Interactive Response System. The system works like this: each student gets a ‘clicker’. When a question is posted or projected, students use the clicker to choose their answer.

Obviously this works best with multiple choice questions. After a student chooses their answer, their response is recorded. This means that the teacher and students can see who has yet to respond. In addition, it also provides a measure of how many students chose a given answer. As a result, the IRS is a fantastic form of diagnostic assessment.

Of course, there is a downside. While Interactive Response Systems are gaining some momentum, they are still not commonplace in all schools. For one thing, they are somewhat expensive. If you want to fork out the cash yourself, an IRS will run you about $2000…ouch. Not to mention, you’ll also need batteries, a projector of some kind and a computer with software.