‘Educators have slid into the 21st century—and into the digital age—still doing a great many things the old way’ (Prensky, 2005).
There are many ways to interpret this quote and certain questions arise from it:
- Have the older generation got slower or has the new generation of student’s simply evolved and changed rapidly?
- Are older educators blind to new technology and resistant to change whilst teenagers just continually adapt and accept new ways of doing things?
According to Prensky, (2005) ‘our young people generally have a much better idea of what the future is bringing than we do.’
Prensky (2005)presents many other interesting opinions about teenage digital culture and educating in the 21st century in his article ‘ Listen to the natives’ .
In my opinion Prensky (2005) lists several factors that are necessary in order to successfully implement technology in the classroom. These include:
- Engaging students with meaningful activities that facilitate learning. For example, many teenagers will play computer games, download and mix music, make movies etc. in their spare time so it would be a good idea for educators to embrace these hobbies in a learning environment. Instead of getting students to just create power point presentations or work through web quests, use other technology that ‘speaks’ to teenagers.
- Teacher-student collaboration. No longer can teachers solely decide what is to be done in a lesson. Increasing student input instills a sense of ownership and responsibility that they are then accountable for.
- Home-school links. Not only does this aspect refer to increasing parental knowledge and access to the school and their child’s education, this also refers to decreasing the ‘gap’ between a child’s school and home life.
However, whilst these are great recommendations there is still one costly issue that needs resolving….
Teachers who are not up to scratch with modern technology basically fear using it through sheer lack of confidence. In the words of Prensky, we need to change these ‘digital immigrants’ to ‘digital natives.’
References
Prensky, M. (2005) Listen to the Natives. Educational Leadership. 63(4), 8-13
http://www.ascd.org/authors/ed_lead/el200512_prensky.html
