Sunday, February 18, 2007

Digital Natives and Education

My previous post mentions digital natives. If you're wondering who they are and, if you are a teacher, what it means to teach digital natives, think about this video created by the YouTube user khokanson:



To learn more about the topic, read Marc Prensky's excellent article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. (PDF document)

6 comments:

Julie Romey said...

Thanks for sharing this video! I love the line that says something about "we are preparing them for jobs that don't exist yet" ... that is so very true! Some times it feels like it would be so much easier to just teach in the "old school" way, but that is doing a real disservice to our kids. This video puts that into perspective in yet another way.

Mrs. Sullivan said...

Thanks for the note. I am also taking courses. Right now I am taking a leadership course and chose technology as my way of leading. If you work with young kids and want to blog, check out think.com. I can't link you to my class because it is password protected. I will post a note about it with screen shots soon. It is yet my best find. All my kid's have blogs that are safe and really easy to use.

Bookreeader said...

It is interesting that you have connected with a teacher in my school - through a chain of blog links?? It just goes to prove the interconnectivity of Web 2.0 tools and the collaborative nature of the new Internet! It begins to look like the old Six Degrees of Separation game. Glad that you and Mrs S. were able to share.
MaryAnn

Kristin Hokanson said...

The "digital natives" pictured on the Today's Learner? slide are my own...NOT STAGED inspiration. I am passionate about tech ed not just as an educator, but a mother as well. Music, TV, computers, are all part of their world "on demand". I love how Julie mentioned that it is easy to teach in the old school way which is SO TRUE. And so many of the teachers in schools ARE passionate, GOOD teachers...and learning to use tech tools is VERY challenging and VERY risky, but also VERY important. This video was originally prepared as an introduction to a presentation about ways we can connect kids to information, one another, and the world. The wiki can be found at:
http://theconnectedclassroom.wikispaces.com
I hope you can visit, use some of the resources and share what your classes are doing (think.com is one I will be adding for sure). So glad that people are using my video to have this conversation:)

Bookreeader said...

Hi! I read your comment on Mrs. Sullivan's bethsedtechinfo blog, and can tell you why her blog seems to follow our class so closely. She is the teacher with whom I generally collaborate on Technology issues in our school. So, she is benefitting from our EdTech course right along with us! Thanks for making the circle complete!
MaryAnn (Mannlibrary)

Anonymous said...

Hi and long time, no talk!!! I was speaking with Olena and she referred me to the blog. She has my contact details so send me an email so we can catch up.

All the best!