Comments on: Can Teachers Become Digital Natives? http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/index.php/2009/11/16/becoming-digital-natives/ Advancing Technology Innovations for All Students Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:52:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: contextor http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/index.php/2009/11/16/becoming-digital-natives/comment-page-1/#comment-253 contextor Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:44:32 +0000 http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/?p=6016#comment-253 I think we must be very careful before making judgments both about how digitally native our students are and how digitally handicapped teachers are. Some of the comments above strike me as more hype than fact: There is not a choice, educators must upgrade their professional digital skills. Teachers find tech to be a burden. Will reform be achieve through attrition? Kids are driving shift to technology. The context of teaching - teachers as gatekeepers to a prescribed and tested body of knowledge (NCLB or IBO), continuing infrastructure issues ( unreliability, access ) and the limited number of hours in the day ( for learning new skills, training, building web pages, etc. etc. ) determine the pace of technology adoption. Students are superficially immersed in technology - they text and chat and post, but in my experience they are not sophisticated users. They search perfunctorily and uncritically. They use Facebook to find out missing homework assignments, but rarely to collaborate (other than posting answers). They are habituated to a set of practices in the technology they use and rarely proceed to the edges. They are in many ways not terribly different from teachers. Teachers buy airline tickets online, shop for books at Amazon, send email, post grades to the SIS. Some of us use Facebook to stay in touch. Some of us blog and tweet. All of us use the tools that assist us in the tasks we confront daily at school and at home. If we want to change the tools, we have to change the tasks. And changing the tasks of school is a challenge that no amount of technology evangelism will accomplish. Rich Chapin, International School of Stuttgart (mr.chapin.iss@googlemail.com) I think we must be very careful before making judgments both about how digitally native our students are and how digitally handicapped teachers are. Some of the comments above strike me as more hype than fact:

There is not a choice, educators must upgrade their professional digital skills.

Teachers find tech to be a burden. Will reform be achieve through attrition?

Kids are driving shift to technology.

The context of teaching – teachers as gatekeepers to a prescribed and tested body of knowledge (NCLB or IBO), continuing infrastructure issues ( unreliability, access ) and the limited number of hours in the day ( for learning new skills, training, building web pages, etc. etc. ) determine the pace of technology adoption.

Students are superficially immersed in technology – they text and chat and post, but in my experience they are not sophisticated users. They search perfunctorily and uncritically. They use Facebook to find out missing homework assignments, but rarely to collaborate (other than posting answers). They are habituated to a set of practices in the technology they use and rarely proceed to the edges. They are in many ways not terribly different from teachers.

Teachers buy airline tickets online, shop for books at Amazon, send email, post grades to the SIS. Some of us use Facebook to stay in touch. Some of us blog and tweet.

All of us use the tools that assist us in the tasks we confront daily at school and at home. If we want to change the tools, we have to change the tasks.

And changing the tasks of school is a challenge that no amount of technology evangelism will accomplish.

Rich Chapin, International School of Stuttgart (mr.chapin.iss@googlemail.com)

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