I read this book several months ago however it is one I keep coming back to. Understanding the Digital Generation: teaching and learning in the new digital landscape by Dukes, McCain and Crockett does a great job of providing evidence of what is changing, and also casting a vision of how and why technology can impact student learning. Chapter 4 outlines ‘A shift to Whole-mind Instruction’ and includes an explanation of what the authors call 21st Century Flencies. They consider these six categories part of the basic literacy skills students need to thrive in the new world of technology. (Dukes, McCain, Crocket. p. 64.)
This is the promo video for the book – a very slick and polished piece of marketing. Then watch Ian Dukes talking about some of the characteristics of digital natives. (I saw his presentation at Learning 2.0 a couple of years ago in Shanghai.) I am obviously a fan of what these guys have to say – you may have noticed my post on Ted McCain’s book ‘Teaching for Tomorrow’ which I looked up after reading Understanding the Digital Generation.
Simon’s post on music mashups reminded me of the Larry Lessig TED talk on copyright and the art of ‘remixing’. He presents the case that Creative Commons allows people to use material for creative expression that enriches and challenges our culture. The concept of MASHUPs seems to be about finding was to creatively extend something whether it is mixing software apps for a specific purpose or using elements of content to create new meaning.
Teaching for Tomorrow: teaching content and problem solving by Ted McCain has a simple and challenging message. Help students develop independence and the ability to define, design, do and debrief problems that mimic real world situations. McCain is clearly an advocate for technology in the classroom however technology is a means to an end rather than the ultimate panacea. In his closing paragraphs he gets to the heart of it:
In my view, the use of technology in the classroom is not the critical issue facing us in education in the 21st Century. The issue of foremost importance is to develop thinking skills in our students so that they will be able to utilize the power of technological tools to solve problems and to do useful work.
I have been so inspired by McCains teaching strategy I made my first attempt at using a role play with one of my classes yesterday. I have to say I was pretty nervous and my hands were visibly shaking when I re-entered the room as ‘Rebecca Winters from Reuters’ and launched into my presentation. The kids blinked a bit and then entered into the spirit of the simulation, asking clarifying questions about the task, and later when I returned as ‘me’, they started to grapple with defining the problem. Because ‘Ms Winers’ was no longer in the room the kids had to help each other (if they didn’t take sufficient notes), and my role was to help mediate their thinking about the problem. Voila – engagement in a different way than I have seen.
As a teacher of AP Studio Art I get all the College Board articles and up-dates. This came through this morning: Teachers are the center of Education: Writing, Learning and leading in the digital age. I particularly liked seeing the recommendations that came from the study. One caution though, an assumption you could make is that Language Arts is the domain that students should develop digital literacy in. I would advocate that all disciplines should be embracing digital forms of expression and communication. Some areas – like the visual and media arts – have significant contributions to make in regard to conventions of design. Likewise, we all need to be teaching and reinforcing good writing since it is a skill used right through life. Anyway, here’s the recommendations:
Recommendations
Effective teaching with technology requires far more than just adequate hardware and software. It takes commitment, trained personnel, planning, resources and ongoing evaluation. To meet the challenges of teaching and learning in the digital age:
• Every student, at all levels of education, needs one-to-one access to computers and other mobile devices in the classroom.
• Every teacher, at all levels of education, needs professional development in the effective use of digital tools for teaching and learning, including the use of digital tools to promote writing.
• All schools and districts need a comprehensive information technology policy to ensure that the infrastructure, technical support and resources are available for teaching and learning.
Make your own comic at Pixton.com. We tried this out in class this morning – this was an example by Sam for a Prom story in the school newspaper – it got laughs – from me at least.
…the typical process of technology adoption (keeping in mind, of course, that schools are not typical of anything.) It’s typically a four-step process:
Dabbling.
Doing old things in old ways.
Doing old things in new ways.
Doing new things in new ways.
On a related note, one of my classes was making voxpops this week for our online student newspaper. The topic we were covering was whether our school should adopt a 1:1 laptop model or not. A couple of kids said it would just mean that they would type their notes. Old things — note-taking – in new ways. I was also surprised by the responses from students who said laptops or tablets would be a distraction to learning. An interpretation might be that if teaching and learning stays the same as it is now, then students having their own laptops wouldn’t necessarily improve student learning.
So I have been thinking about alternative ways to introduce a topic like ‘the Principles of Design’ and have experiemented with creating an avitar video. I used XraNormal to create this intro to the slideshow – it’s sort of a mini-me except I don’t have pig tails.
I have been working on adding content to a Ning. The Social object of the site is actually digital publishing. Since one of the tasks that students have been asked to complete includes creating illustrations on a topic to go with writitng from another class I thought it would be wise to create some stand-alone Learning Objects that will help them. So I created a slideshow to introduce the basic principles of design to help them.
I’ve been thinking about the similarities and differences between LO’s (Learning Objects) and SO’s (Social Objects). The example I came up with was Weight Weenies – the ‘social object’ that people have in common is cycling and making their bikes as lite-weight as possible. Within the site there are a range of ways for people to connect and be social around their common interest. Then within the site there are Learning Objects in a variety of forms such as step-by-step instructions. It makes a lot of sense to house a LO’s in SO’s for a context like this.
Social Links