With All Due Respect: Just Pondering a Reality Check
Net Generation/Millennials, Teaching Sunday, November 4th, 2007I go through these moments where I stop and need a reality check. Usually, this occurs when I am inundated with ideas from posts, twits, videos, etc. surrounding an issue.
With all due respect, I’m in one of those moments as its seems the idea that we must use the technology because this is what our students know, what they want, what they need is being forced upon us with little to support it other than personal claims.
Thus, I am wondering if that is the reality or are we “sold” on, are we in “love” with all the tools, so we so quickly use terms like Net Generation, Digital Natives, and Millenials and make claims like “they want this; they are craving these tools in the classroom”.
Before anyone hits delete or starts firing comments at me, remember I’m simply pondering the question based upon some recent items I’ve been exposed to on the Internet:
Why I’m Pondering This
- Michael Wesch’s A Vision of Students Today video (I placed in a post last month so I’m keeping it out of this one) is making waves in the blogosphere — a battle cry for instructional technology though I’m not sure that was Mr. Wesch’s intention. While an amazing video that I find resonates with me on many levels, some questions continue to float around in my mind about the technology mentioned and what it means to education:
- the comparison of books read with web pages and Facebook profiles. What does this mean for education? Should we be shifting our focus to digitial texts? Would students read more? learn more?
- the listing of time spent on the computer, listening to music, talking on the phone, and watching television. This obviously shows that students spending time with digital media BUT what does this mean for education? What are they doing online? Should we bring this media into the classroom? How would students react if we did?
- Eszter Hargittai’s Digital Divide presentation at the Berkman Center was the impetus to this post NOT because she was making claims but because of a study she recently completed. While her presentation offered much greater discussion than what I am pulling out for this post, the point worth noting in this discussion was a slide she called “The Reality Check”. With all the claims about what students are doing and what students want to be doing, the data here doesn’t seem to support it.
While there are some that are heavily used (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia), social bookmarking, blogging, Second Life, and Skyping show a low usage by those surveyed*. What does this tell us about the tools we are exploring? What does this mean about those claiming (myself included) that web 2.0 tools are what students want, need?
- I have had teachers and professors email me after presentations where students were upset about the classroom moving towards the use of these tools. Now, I’m not sure how the teachers presenting these to the students. For all I know, they could be presented without any shifting in the teachers practices. However, I find it interesting that this is becoming more and more common talk from teachers and professors.
- I often chat with students in the hall or just before entering labs about technology. It is interesting to get their takes on various tools making headlines. Take my recent discussion about Twitter with students in which one poignantly stated: “I stopped using Twitter as soon as the adults moved in”. Would this happen with other tools? MySpace? Facebook?
- EDIT: Pat Higgins had feedback from a student that adds to this pondering of mine and is well worth a read.
- EDIT: via Twitter, scmorgan mentioned her recent post “Being a Laptop School” that also has feedback in relation student feedback on technology use that ties in well with this discussion. She raises great questions in the end, which leaves me wondering if students will resist because active learning is a lot more challenging than the passive environment they have lived with in the past.
With All Due Respect
As I said, I’m pondering this right now, trying to make sense of what is in front of me. I understand students love MySpace but I’m not sure they love blogs, wikis, muves, podcasts, etc. However, I’m not sure if they’ve been exposed to these either. Perhaps students would love these as much as they love MySpace. Perhaps we hope they love them because we do. Perhaps we need to ponder the claims within twits, blogs, skype, and presentations about how sure we are that these tools are what students and schools need.
With all due respect, I’m just thinking out loud here.
*1,060 first year college students in Feb/Mar 07 . The percentages represent “occasional or frequent use of this service”.
[Tags] Eszter Hargittai, Michael Wesch, visionstudentstoday, education, media, ethnography [/Tags]
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Short URL: http://www.ryanbretag.com/blog/?p=247
I am with you on several levels here, but my most recent revelation is with blogging. Last year, almost none of my kids knew what a blog was, and thought it was totally cool when we started using it as a writing tool in my class. This year, my kids just see it as another assignment, and seem to have no passion for it. It is like I took all the fun out of it by using it in my classroom. As a result, I am more reflective in my implementation of new tools, and although my personal learning has increased greatly this year, my tech integration has actually slowed down for some much needed reflection. It’s a process-as always:)
Tansmom
[...] a great entry by the Four Eyed Technologist which questions to the “wired” nature of students. How wired and connected to online [...]
Sometimes I wonder Ryan if some of what we as adults are so excited about and can’t live without comes from our sense of isolation. I am very isolated in my job, I don’t have many to turn to in terms of who helps to stretch my thinking, who I learn from in my district or local area. Districts are all over the map in what they are doing with technology as an integral part of their curriculum. Twitter, blogging, ning etc are my lifeline, my network is my staff development. Before these tools came into our lives we were not connected to one another, we all did our jobs in a little tiny part of the world and wondered if others were doing anything similar. I think for those of us participating in these communities we are so excited to have others to share ideas with it seems hard to believe everyone doesn’t feel the same as we do.
I believe students would benefit from the use of the tools and learning about online communities that will stretch their thinking as well, expose them to people and ideas they would not otherwise have access to. But we need to teach them how to build those communities for learning and show them the benefits as we have all been shown by others. My own “kids” 26 and 21 don’t use blogs, wikis, twitter, podcasts, they have heard the words but don’t use them or even seem vaguely interested in what they are. They do use Facebook and are not the least bit interested in having me as a friend in that space of theirs. It is a learning curve for them to use in a meaningful way in their learning, just as it is a learning curve for teachers to understand the tools and look at their practice to see how it all fits.
I know where you are right, now, Ryan. I always come back to those moments of epiphany in my class and simply realize that we use the technology because “We know it is the correct thing to do and because it works.” It is a cognizant thing we do, simply because we know.
ted
Ryan, I share a similar view to you. We are inundated with so much technology that it is hard to sort through it all. Myspace, Facebook, texting, twitter. Where does it all end? I think we are in the early phase of this technology revolution, when people are throwing out all of these possible ideas for using technology. Having never used Twitter I just don’t see how sending “twits” are going to be beneficial in the classroom. But I could be proven wrong, who knows. I predict that over time some forms will win out and others will fade away. We as teachers need to find meaningful ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. Right now I can only do some basic revision work with my senior comp students on Word Comments because no one taught them that before. I would love to do some wiki work, but I may save that for my senior lit students who will have a little more time (and since it’s in the spring, it may save them from some senioritis!) I’m really looking forward to NCTE this year because I’m hoping that it will help me sort through this all some more!
Ryan,
I’m not sure this video is an argument either for or against technology. I think it shows how our kids are REALLY learning and the source of that education. I’m not saying that I think it’s a good idea, but they learn those tools quite well and they use them with a rapidity that is nearly staggering. We should tap into those tools, in the same way that we meet the kids where they are and try to move them to the next level. It seems that the school systems in which we serve way, way, WAY too often ignore what the kids are already doing and try to force them into some preconceived notion of “what school is,” whatever that means. I use technology because it’s the best tool available for the needs. I don’t use everything, however, and I often point out its limitations. That’s always a moment of great irony for the students, as they look around my computer lab classroom, one that is outfitted with more than $70,000 worth of technology.
Technology is a tool. Tools can be used for good or for ill. It’s how we use them that matters.