Digital Kids. Analog Schools.
The quotes featured in this article focus on the need for the education system to adapt to the rapidly changing technology that students are learning to use. Children are now more familiar with technology at a much younger age. If educators don’t try to catch up and become leaders, we will be seen by our students as followers who are irrelevant.
Because we cannot know what the world will be like when our students graduate and enter the workforce, it is most important that we need to teach them to learn, unlearn, create, and adapt to changing technology.
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
One of the fundamental causes of the decline of education in the US is that our students have changed. They are not the same students our educational system was designed to teach. The rapid dissemination of digital technology has led to a fundamental change in the way students think and process information. Today’s students represent the first generation to have grown up surrounded by this new technology. As a result, it is possible that our students’ brains are physically different from ours.
These new students are referred to as “digital natives.” They are “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. Those of us who were not born into the digital world are referred to as “digital immigrants.” We have adopted many or most aspects of the new technology, but compared to the “digital natives,” we are not nearly as fluent, and we retain a digital immigrant accent.
The single biggest problem facing education today is that digital immigrant instructors are trying to teach a population that speaks an entirely different language. Today’s instructors must learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This means going faster, less step-by-step, more in parallel, with more random access. Content must also change. There are now two kinds of content: “Legacy” content (reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding ideas of the past) and “Future” content (software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc., as well as the ethics, politics, sociology, languages, and other things that go with them). The legacy content is still important, but some of it will become less so. The future content is typically very interesting to students, but the digital immigrant instructors are not prepared to teach it. As educators, we need to think about how we can teach both kinds of content in the language of the digital natives. Instead of sticking to the traditional methods of teaching content, educators can adapt by creating new methods, such as video games, that appeal to today’s students.
Tools for the Mind
Instructional technology literature from the 1990s showed a commitment to the belief that computers could transform student learning. In the present era, the pendulum has shifted. Educators and education officials are now questioning the potential value of computers as instructional tools.
Many educators believe in the “exceptionality” of computers, believing that they can do for students what other tools and reforms cannot. This has resulted in a narrow focus on technology at the expense of the more important pillars of learning. Many districts have concentrated on professional development that trains teachers in skills instead of teaching them how technology can be used to enhance student learning. Also, many districts have failed to make the kinds of accommodations needed to allow for the full capitalization of classroom technology. Another problem is that schools have conflated technology use with instructional quality, and student engagement with improved learning and higher order thinking. In all the excitement about using new technology, educators have failed to ask the most fundamental question: are students actually learning? Educators also tend to classify all software applications as cognitively and instructionally equal. This misconception has resulted in in an overreliance on conceptually easy kinds of software that focus on simple cognitive tasks. In addition to lower-order tools, classrooms use more robust tools (such as the internet, spreadsheets, and databases) in such nondifferentiated ways that they dilute their power. Many other software tools offer even greater opportunities for higher-order thinking (geographic information systems, computer-aided design programs, and simulation software programs), but they are virtually invisible in classrooms.
The focus on lower-order technology tools may result from the fact that the higher-order tools are less user-friendly, and less visually appealing. They also take time to learn, integrate, and use. Also, school districts often lack technology trainers who are proficient in the use of these tools.
The solution to the problem will require a return to original assumptions – the need for critical thinking, learner-centered instruction, and the use of computers as mind tools. It will also require professional development that addresses these needs. Before computers are dismissed as an expensive fad, schools must take measures to ensure that they are using computers to their fullest instructional potential.
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