Turning on the Lights

Prensky's article, Turning on the Lights, fulfilled every writer's goal of provoking the reader to think. At least it provoked this reader to think. Reflecting on the following questions helped me to fine-tune my thinking around Prensky's approach to the subject of integrating kids' outside use of technology inside the school.

• Do you agree with Prensky's notion that requiring students to "power down" in school actually impedes their learning? How might allowing students to use technological devices in class help or hinder their learning?

First and foremost, I believe that the key to student engagement is meaningful content. If the student has no meaningful connection to the subject matter, he/she is unlikely to embrace it. "How am I ever going to use this?", isn't just a question elicited by a boring Trigonometry class. Even our youngest students benefit from having a schema connection to the subject matter, helping them develop a meaningful connection from that which they know to that which they don't yet know. Whenever something can be related to the self, it is inherently more interesting. The place where I see "powering down" in the classroom as an impediment to learning is in the severing of that schema connection. When approaching something that initially holds no real meaning for the student, perhaps the mode of interaction with that subject may be the only thing that connects it to the student. If there is a way that technological devices used outside the classroom help bridge the gap and create connections for the students to access material inside the classroom, then there is greater meaning in the subject matter for that student.

• What place do you see in the classroom for laptops, cell phones, mp3 players, social networking sites, Wikipedia, and other technologies?

Though my mind went immediately to the middle and high school age student when first pondering this question, that is not where my own connection lies, so I thought it through again in relation to the elementary school aged child - MY little peeps. Though some of these devices don't readily apply to the younger child, the general principal of what I stated earlier still does. If a technological device used outside of the classroom helps create a connection to the subject matter in the classroom, then it may very well have a place there. I see this coming into play most readily with students' writing. What to write about is the biggest challenge for many of my students. Though we may cringe when a student shares about "reaching level 12" on such and such a video game over the weekend because WE would have preferred that he was out playing soccer, we've severed a meaningful connection for that student by dis-allowing it. What might happen if we allowed occasional blocks for "tech devices" in the classroom? Little folks need things concrete and tangible. How better to elicit rich word choice for describing your game character than to write about him while you're playing the game? How better to describe how a piece of music makes you feel than to write about it while you're listening to it on your mp3 player? How better to practice written communication skills than to instant message with a friend from laptop to laptop? Might a math or social studies concept become more clear in the context of a well known game? As teachers, we are always working toward strengthening home-school connections for optimal learning, so why do we feel compelled to overlook this connection?

• What is your school's policy regarding technology in school? Do you believe your policy meets the needs of your students? If so, why? If not, what changes would you make?

Currently, our elementary school does not allow any "electronic devices" to be brought from home. As a general rule for our age group, that policy is sound, as we would much prefer kids to be running and playing with friends on the playground than sitting on a bench playing a hand-held video game. For the above stated argument, however, I see room to improve the language around that, at least.

• How can teachers and administrators balance the desire to stay up-to-date with the need to always make sure that teachers can use the techniques and technologies that best suit their students? (1)

Marc Prensky's bullet points for "Turning on the Lights" were terrific in this regard:

• Give students the opportunity to use technology in school.
• Find out how students want to be taught.
• Connect students to the world.
• Understand where kids are going—that is, into the future—and help them get there.

Perhaps my favorite quote from Prensky's article was this:

Teachers would no longer be the providers of information but instead would be the explainers, the context providers, the meaning makers, and the evaluators of information that kids find on their own.

Sometimes I think we, as teachers, need to get out of our own way. We are HUGE sources of light for these children, but we're hardly the only source. I celebrate the fact that children are now able to sponge up information from so very many resources and I see my role as a teacher as being even more critical in helping them disseminate it, draw meaning from it, and evaluate it critcally.

Taking the Digital Plunge

The author of this article, Bill Ferriter, is a self described digital junkie. Though I hardly put myself in that category, I was inspired by his description of the genesis of his obsession because, I too, have "a high-speed Internet connection and a bit of moxie" - so what's my excuse for not at least getting started?

One of the things that teachers both love and lack is enough time to commiserate with colleagues and learn from the collective pool of wisdom, creativity, and experience at their disposal. We can't seem to carve out enough time in our day to go to the bathroom, let alone sit and share ideas with our like-minded peers. We are, between the hours of 8 and 3, largely unavailable to our immediate professional learning community. Though there is no substitute for time spent with colleagues who most closely "share our story", 21st century technology opens up other options for professional learning. On our own time, using tools like blogs and RSS feeds, we are now able to connect with and learn from our teaching colleagues across the globe. As the next natural step, teachers must then guide students to do the same, using computers, as Ferriter states, "to learn with- rather than simply about- the world".

It is clear that even the youngest of our students are highly capable of connecting in this digital age. Ferriter encourages the teacher to take a more active role in helping students to recognize the power of these connections. In this age where the globe is shrinking in terms of the ease with which we can connect with others, both young and older have a unique opportunity to use this networking for more meaningful personal growth. As we become more in tune with the idea that we are, in fact, all ONE, we can use today's technology to find others who share our passions and explore global challenges together. We can share what we have learned and, in turn, learn from so many others.

Teachers who are willing to explore these possibilities and become efficient 21st century learners themselves will be better equipped to present that model of life-long learning to our students. Teaching our students the value behind the networking is, perhaps, the most valuable way of supporting our networked kids.

Bloggers Worth Looking At

There are a couple of bloggers whose content gives me the nuts and bolts, I-can-actually-use-this, kind of stuff I crave.

Matthew Needleman's blog page, Creating Life Long Learners, is one such contributor. I lost (or one might say gained) an hour of my afternoon looking through his page, checking out some new and creative "back to school" activities and enjoying the fact that I was only one of many teachers wondering how to best utilize Independent Work Time. I also found his information on Using Video in the Classroom really inspiring because one of my goals is to do just that and his guidelines and resources made it actually seem do-able! I so appreciate REAL stuff that I can actually use!

Also love Kathy Cassidy's page, which really shows the "live action" of what goes on in her classroom. As I view it, I think about the empowerment of the students involved in creating the material being presented! How exciting to see one's own learning demonstrated to the public in this way. Again, very inspiring stuff, as it only proves to me that all of these tools are readily available and mine for the learning. I have as much capacity to learn how to use them as Kathy Cassidy did - and will!

Digital Literacy

Who knew that teachers could still be effective to their digitally savvy students, even without being technical magicians?

While taking a graduate class on 21st Century Teaching and Learning with Technology http://usmepc512.wikispaces.com, I read an interesting article entitled "Orchestrating the Media Collage" http://bit.ly/NdC1.
The author of the article, Jason Ohler, helped to define the ever-evolving face of literacy, which essentially boils down to being able to read and write the media form of the day. In the 21st century, that medium is digital, thus involving literacy with not only text, but sound, graphics, and moving images as well. Ohler's article speaks specifically to the role of teachers in this process. He puts forth eight solid guidelines for teachers, which all have a bottom line message of : "Do what you always do as teachers - help your students consume and create quality material." Though he states that teachers must approach digital literacy "as part of their own intellectual retooling", the role of the teacher in helping their students achieve digital literacy is less that of a technician and more that of a guide and manager of their students' work within the digital media collage. Even within the scary context of this digital world in which we, the teachers, are clearly the immigrants and not the natives, our role remains that of helping students connect with the best tools at hand and use them to express themselves well.

From this article, I took away a couple of important things:

1. We are in a unique place in history to be able to "tell a story". The tools at hand are vast and our potential to express is limitless. Rather than approach this push toward digital literacy as something we should fear, due to our own level of "illiteracy", teachers should celebrate the new opportunities being presented to our students to engage in the ageless art of telling a story.

2. Along this same line, I was delighted to read Ohler's support for demanding that we "treat art as the next R, just as important as the traditional 3 Rs". Upon reading this section of his commentary, I actually cheered, out loud, to the universe at large, "YES!". I've long been a believer in the value of art for art's sake, not just as a support to literacy and math, so to have attention focused on art as a critical component of our new age of literacy brings me great hope and satisfaction.

Autumn