Reflections

Paul raises some interesting points in relation to Prensky’s Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants literature.  The whole concept of the native / immigrant does carry the baggage of immigration connotations and political correctness. 

Quite rightly Paul points out that in the article the digital immigrants are ostracised and berated for their lack of expertise.  This got me thinking.  Perhaps the digital immigrants will take the route suggested to many real immigrants by disgruntled (and misguided) “natives” who tell them to “go back home”. 

What then?  Are we left with a situation where digital immigrants stop attempting to upskill because of the apparent divide between them and their students?  Do these immigrants give the job up as all too hard and return to the tried and tested days of direct instruction, textbooks and silent classrooms?

Perhaps we should be giving credit to the “digital immigrants” who are making an effort rather than telling them they need to do more.  We don’t want them checking out . . .

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

Ackermann’s helpful article describes the distinction between the two labels above, though both are predicated on the belief that a child’s knowledge is “actively constructed” in their interactions with their surroundings.

It is suggested that Piaget’s Constructivism seems to ignore the individual differences between children, their learning styles and their varying contexts, which are dealt with in Papert’s Constructionism.  Ackermann concludes therefore that Papert’s approach is more “situated and pragmatic” than Piaget’s. 

The impression conveyed to me as a reader is that Piaget envisages that children attain the ability to learn not just from concrete experiences, but by “thinking” about these experiences outside the boundaries of the physical world.  Papert on the other hand seems to consider that the child’s connection to the particular situation is the key to assessing their learning.

Ackermann then takes the logical leap in the article, suggesting that both approaches are important parts of learning.  It would appear to me to be a matter of common sense that you can learn about something both by doing it and by thinking about it, but you’ll learn even better if you do both!

So it would appear there is a constructive difference between the two concepts that I didn’t appreciate before having read this article.  So as educators I suppose the challenge is to allow students to dive in to situations to enable them to learn, but to ensure they reflect and critically analyse what they have experienced to gain a deeper understanding.

Hopefully, I’ve unravelled that one . . .

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

Prensky’s “digital native/digital immigrant” work has proven to be fertile ground for our band of digital education bloggers, often with some deal of criticism, but I think I’m going to put my hand up and admit it . . .

My name is Basil, and I’m a digital native.  There, I said it, it’s off my chest. 

I attended a high school in which I was placed in a “TEC” (technology enabled class) program, and I did all my work during Years 7-9 on the laptop.  (For anyone into specs this laptop had a 486 SX processor with a whopping 4 megabytes of RAM and a 200 megabyte hard drive, and it appears below!)

I often did (and do) my homework listening to music, whilst also on the internet chatting or browsing. I’d like to think of myself as part of the generation of original digital natives.  I don’t suppose many others reading this remember feeling excited each afternoon to hear the sounds of the modem dialing into your ISP (maybe that’s just me).

I was not taught at school in a particularly new or digital fashion.  We certainly had a laptop, but it was used as a convenient word processor 90% of the time.  Prensky writes emotively in his article about how the old methods don’t work any more, students today have changed.  I feel I would have to disagree.  I don’t think it is a matter of the old methods no longer working with Gen Y, its more a matter of having found a way to better engage and interest the students in a context that is relevant and familiar.

I don’t think its important to worry about who is an immigrant and who is a native.  Using digital tools is about intelligently designing material so as to take advantage of the enrichment that technology can provide.  I’m a future computer studies teacher, as well as a digital native, but that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed to admit students will know how to use some technology far better than I will.  That’s ok.  Who says only students learn at school . . . . ?

A final thought, Prensky’s ideas about teaching with games are great theoretically and could no doubt be adapted and included in various parts of the curriculum, but until someone designs the “Entire Mathematics Syllabus” MMORPG I don’t think we can quite be throwing out our resources and textbooks (be they digital or otherwise) . . .

I read an article entitled “Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed” (Harris, Msihra and Koelher) which unforunately was on print media, but there is a helpful wiki maintained by one ot the authors (Matthew J. Koehler) which summarises the main point behind the TPCK framework.

In all honesty, I don’t see this model as rocket science (though the article expresses the point well).  Good teachers naturally would be familiar with the interaction between content and pedagogy and the synergies between the two that make for effective teaching.  All this model really suggests is that technology can be thought of as a third cog in the wheel and integrated in much the same way as content and pedagogy already are (or should be) within particular contexts.

The article makes the point that teachers must be flexible  in their use of technology because the majority of popular software was not created with educational use in mind, and teachers need to develop skills which let them ” ‘reconfigure technologies’ for their own pedagogical purposes”.  I’m not sure this is entirely the best approach.  Is there a point in engaging technology in the classroom if we’ve had to adapt the use of technology to make it relevant?  Surely the point of technology use is to engage or to enrich a learning experience, and not to manufacture an artificial environment where the use of a particular technology is now available, which would not generally have been appropriate.

Zoos these days often focus on keeping animals in (as close as possible to) their natural environment.  Shouldn’t we do the same with technology?  Won’t that lead to the most meaningful and relevant technology use?