Rosa’s Blog

After reading so many articles about the new digital generation and its impact in the learning, society and communication, I become aware of teachers are facing a big challenge in their classrooms everyday and I was wondering we are ready to handle these changes? Are we ready to tackle these issues in our schools? What we are doing in order to face these changes? Are the schools providing us with the right tools to confront these changes? Am I preparing myself academically to be involved with this new way to teach?

It is easy to see that our traditional curriculum is getting obsolete for this new students generation and we need to be more risky trying new innovated lessons in which our students become seekers of knowledge using the new technology. But we must first invest in discovery so they can use the technologies properly. It is a big challenge for everyone particular because we did not grow up with this ultra technology universe compare with our students since their birth. Today, children come into class with more information that their teachers however this does not mean that they have more knowledge but there is a new way of learning for them and we should be very concerned about this.

Made available under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Available here.

I just finished reading the research finding that Australian Communication and Media Authority conducted about Australian families with children using media in 2007 and the findings proof that there is a new generation of children who are growing up with a lot of access to the media and their parents value the internet and they look comfortable with their children’s engagement with electronic media and communication activities during their leisure time. The figures show incredibly nine-in-ten family homes with children have the internet and they are highly exposed not only to internet but TV, DVD, mobile phones, MP3 players, game consoles and other communication devices. On average, children 8-17 years spend about one and quarter hours online every day.  But the concerning here is how benefit is the electronic media for our children. What is the school’s role and society to protect these children from the wrong use of these technology devices? Are the parents aware of the negative influences of electronic media may impact in their children?

Another interested article about the digital generation was Child Power: Key to the New Learning of the Digital Century by Seymour Papert. What I agree with this article is about our society is changing incredibly fast and there is not much happening in our schools and there is a big gap which is easy to see by this new digital generation. And as a result our traditional curriculum is becoming obsolete for them who are used to getting information very fast and dynamic. As a teacher I wonder what we are doing to stop this gap? How we are preparing our students for this accelerate changes in our society? What tools and skills we are giving to them in order to face this new way of learning? But the most important what we are doing to create an environment that allow this new system of digital technology be part of our classroom and make more dynamic, diverse, easy  our lessons in order to go at the same rhythm of our students. It is time to think about it and be ready to deal with these changes.

I have just read the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky and I completely identified myself as a digital immigrant. I finished the school when just introduced IT and I missed the opportunity to be part of the new generation.  I feel completely foreign to this new generation and its language. It is the same feeling that I had when I just arrived to Australia.  A feeling of lost in the jungle and surrounded by new creatures speaking a language that it was hard to understand for me. But five years later I am here speaking the same language and identified with this culture. 

 This article makes me to reflect what is going on between this digital natives (students) and digital immigrants (teachers) these days. I become aware that we are dealing with a different generation of students who like to get information very fast and speak a language that we hardly understand. So we need to be prepared for all these new challenges and be conscious not only with the methodology that we are using with these digital natives but also with the content which according to Prensky is divided in two (legacy and future). As a teacher what we have to do. It is the big questions but it has an answer. Just be more creative and be exposed more to this new language that our students use now. Being exposed to this new language, we can become more experts and have a better understanding of how to use it in the classroom.

Welcome to your brand new blog at Edublogs.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

There’s stacks of great supporting material too! Take time to view our some helpful introductory videos, read through our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

And finally, if you like Edublogs but want to be able to simply create, administer, control and manage hundreds of student and teacher blogs at your school or college, check out Edublogs Campus… it’s like Edublogs in a box, all for you.

Thanks again for signing up with Edublogs!