Year two of the 1:1 iPad initiative in my school is progressing, and as time has passed, I've been realizing that a fundamental assumption I was making was completely wrong.
In 2001, Marc Prensky wrote that, "our students today are all "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet." (You can read his work at: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf) I read this at the time and thought he was correct in his description of the "digital native," and I accepted that I was a "digital immigrant." However time and experience has helped me to realize the error of his and my assumptions.
I agree with Prensky that there is a difference between the students today and the teachers who teach them in terms of levels of comfort with the technology. My students are fearless with their handling of devices. (Often too fearless, as evidenced by the rising number of cracked, chipped and spider webbed screens in my classroom...) However, there is a difference in being fearless with handling and being fearless with using! They are not native speakers of the technology they hold. Here's why I think so:
1) A digital native would instinctively utilize digital tools. When I ask my students to articulate their understanding of a topic and give them a free choice of how to do it, they automatically gravitate toward something that they draw, hand write or compose on paper. They do not gravitate toward anything on the iPad. They have to be anywhere from encouraged to required to leave the comfort of paper and writing implements to make use of the digital tool they hold in their hand. Their default is analog, not digital.
2) A digital native who spoke the language of computers and the internet would be able to do more than a rudimentary search for a topic in a search engine. They would be able to ask sophisticated questions in a way that would actually use the search engine to find answers to their questions without me having to teach them how to use the tool. Yes, they all go to Google to do research, and they prefer that to researching in books. But, all the ways to refine a digital search continue to elude my students at the deep, native level, and instead this trait exists on a superficial level.
3) A digital native would be able to creatively take advantage of digital tools available to them. They would be able to generate ideas in a digital format and see them through to completion without the instructor having to model the use of the format, the composition and the creation. This I have to do every time we do a project in my class. Any app we use must be explained and demonstrated by me before my students will make use of it in an independent fashion. And even then, they will only use the tool in the way in which I showed it to them; they neither take risks with it nor do they innovate with the tool to combine it with other tools.
I have stopped giving my students a wide open range to express themselves while using the iPad. The results are disappointing. The students say it is overwhelming, they don't know how to use the iPad and its many apps to articulate their understanding, and they need me to show them how, tell them what to do, and translate their paper desires into a digital format.
Perhaps, now that my district has pushed iPads down to middle school and will expand into the elementary schools in the coming year, when a student who is currently in kindergarten arrives in my classroom having had this device as a part of his or her educational life, I will not have to lead them in the use of technology, and they will begin to resemble the digital native Prensky described.
This is all not to say that the iPad isn't working well, for in many ways it is, it is just to say that we teachers can't assume that our students are going to be any more knowledgeable, creative and comfortable with digital learning tools than we are. At this point, I may be older than my students, but I remain a level above them when it comes to knowing how effectively to use technology to learn. And that means that sadly, Mr. Prensky was wrong.
Showing posts with label technology in the classroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology in the classroom. Show all posts
Friday, March 15, 2013
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Helping Parents Go 1:1; Lessons from PBL a decade ago
Back in my former school, we made a serious effort to embrace PBL (Project-Based Learning). Of course, we also included Problem-Based Learning (the "other" PBL) as a matter of course. But the basic idea was that rather than spend our time skimming through the forest, we would stop to examine in depth the trees that represented vast swaths of the forest, so that students could then apply their deep understanding of a limited amount of issues to much larger numbers later in life. I enjoyed teaching this way, but I encountered a problem then that is echoing in a problem I'm encountering now: what words represent to people changes depending on the audience.
I discovered that in talking to parents of freshmen (the grade I mostly taught at the time) about PBL, they arrived at the discussion with a mental definition of the word "project." Want to guess what it entailed? Too bad, I'll tell you anyway...
Construction paper, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, string, beads... Some dads had Scouts on the brain, so they thought sawing, nailing, sanding, painting, knot tying... Regardless, they all thought nothing associated with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. They thought: making hand turkeys. Or turtles. Or model cars. So they were skeptics from the jump. And as a result, they could not understand why their child wasn't getting an A in this, the process of making a hand turkey. Of interest is the fact that none of the conversations were bathed in a nostalgia of, "Oh, I remember when she was little she made projects. How cute!" It was all frustration of the mess, the pointlessness, the crowded refrigerator, the failed pinewood derby, etc., etc.
So the parent perception of PBL was negative from the word go, and as a result, I spent the better part of a year's worth of parent-teacher conferences working against that association to help the parents understand exactly what we were doing. So was my administration. It worked, but it was a long haul to get there, and new parents needed to be brought along into the process each year, so I was constantly in a position of defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents.
Now, fast-forward 12 years, and I'm in the classroom talking with parents about technology in the classroom, in this case the 1:1 iPad initiative. Want to guess what the parents' views are? Too bad, I'll tell you.
Games. Facebook. Frivolity. Sex. Wasting time. Surfing the web. "Twittering." Silly pictures. Sex. Crashing. Losing files. These are not happy associations. Parents associate the technology with frustration (they don't know how to do these things/their technology in their job sucks), disconnection (my children don't talk on the phone, they text, so I have no clue what's going on in their lives--I can't even eavesdrop!) and fear (the internet is full of pornographers, perverts and creeps waiting to snatch my child). They do not associate technology with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. Sure, they get the idea of Google as a massive library of information, but they don't know how it works, so they see the crap they get when they search and assume this is what their children are experiencing too.
So I'm spending this year's worth of parent-teacher conferences and back to school nights and parent-teacher meetings and emails working against this association to help the parents understand exactly what we are doing. So's my administration. It seems to be working, but it is a long haul, there are some deep skeptics out there, and at this point I'm not sure if there is actual buy-in or just resigned acceptance of the process. Either way, teachers are constantly having to defend their practice, not partner with the parents.
To be fair, there are large numbers of parents who also use technology in their workplace and in their lives, and so have some appreciation of it as a time/labor-saving device, a presentation tool, or for organizational purposes, so it is not all bad, it's just that the overwhelming impression is that of expensive entertainment.
In hindsight, if a school is considering bringing technology into the classroom, I'd strongly encourage them to spend some time pondering the technology from the other side, the popular culture side, the parent side. Then take the time to explain, carefully and clearly how the device will enhance the culture of rigor and intellectual inquiry already in place in your classroom. Show them, don't tell them. Have the parents come to your open houses and conferences with the device, and guide them through an activity you do in class with your students. Understand that you will have to demystify it for them, for though their children may or may not be digital natives, they are definitely not, and they deserve to be brought along too. Otherwise, the teachers are in a position of constant defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents, who are in a constant state of bewilderment, disenfranchisement and apprehension about what their children are doing not only up in their rooms, but also in school.
I discovered that in talking to parents of freshmen (the grade I mostly taught at the time) about PBL, they arrived at the discussion with a mental definition of the word "project." Want to guess what it entailed? Too bad, I'll tell you anyway...
Construction paper, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, string, beads... Some dads had Scouts on the brain, so they thought sawing, nailing, sanding, painting, knot tying... Regardless, they all thought nothing associated with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. They thought: making hand turkeys. Or turtles. Or model cars. So they were skeptics from the jump. And as a result, they could not understand why their child wasn't getting an A in this, the process of making a hand turkey. Of interest is the fact that none of the conversations were bathed in a nostalgia of, "Oh, I remember when she was little she made projects. How cute!" It was all frustration of the mess, the pointlessness, the crowded refrigerator, the failed pinewood derby, etc., etc.
So the parent perception of PBL was negative from the word go, and as a result, I spent the better part of a year's worth of parent-teacher conferences working against that association to help the parents understand exactly what we were doing. So was my administration. It worked, but it was a long haul to get there, and new parents needed to be brought along into the process each year, so I was constantly in a position of defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents.
Now, fast-forward 12 years, and I'm in the classroom talking with parents about technology in the classroom, in this case the 1:1 iPad initiative. Want to guess what the parents' views are? Too bad, I'll tell you.
Games. Facebook. Frivolity. Sex. Wasting time. Surfing the web. "Twittering." Silly pictures. Sex. Crashing. Losing files. These are not happy associations. Parents associate the technology with frustration (they don't know how to do these things/their technology in their job sucks), disconnection (my children don't talk on the phone, they text, so I have no clue what's going on in their lives--I can't even eavesdrop!) and fear (the internet is full of pornographers, perverts and creeps waiting to snatch my child). They do not associate technology with intellectual, academic, rigorous thought. Sure, they get the idea of Google as a massive library of information, but they don't know how it works, so they see the crap they get when they search and assume this is what their children are experiencing too.
So I'm spending this year's worth of parent-teacher conferences and back to school nights and parent-teacher meetings and emails working against this association to help the parents understand exactly what we are doing. So's my administration. It seems to be working, but it is a long haul, there are some deep skeptics out there, and at this point I'm not sure if there is actual buy-in or just resigned acceptance of the process. Either way, teachers are constantly having to defend their practice, not partner with the parents.
To be fair, there are large numbers of parents who also use technology in their workplace and in their lives, and so have some appreciation of it as a time/labor-saving device, a presentation tool, or for organizational purposes, so it is not all bad, it's just that the overwhelming impression is that of expensive entertainment.
In hindsight, if a school is considering bringing technology into the classroom, I'd strongly encourage them to spend some time pondering the technology from the other side, the popular culture side, the parent side. Then take the time to explain, carefully and clearly how the device will enhance the culture of rigor and intellectual inquiry already in place in your classroom. Show them, don't tell them. Have the parents come to your open houses and conferences with the device, and guide them through an activity you do in class with your students. Understand that you will have to demystify it for them, for though their children may or may not be digital natives, they are definitely not, and they deserve to be brought along too. Otherwise, the teachers are in a position of constant defensiveness, not partnership, with the parents, who are in a constant state of bewilderment, disenfranchisement and apprehension about what their children are doing not only up in their rooms, but also in school.
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