I had to laugh aloud several times as I read this article. My life experiences prove the author's words are true each and every day. My fifth graders are much more attentive when I use technology in a lesson. And using a game to teach or reinforce a concept is their favorite activity! Whenever I get stumped by something my computer or Eno board is doing, I know I can find a student who can probably figure out what went wrong and help me fix it. Even at home, I am constantly reminded that my own three children are digital natives while I am the slower, digital immigrant. I watch my kids text, interact on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, talk on Skype, and create projects using the computer. Computers at home aren't optional by the way. Every evening, at least two of the three have homework that requires internet access. Packing the flash drive in the bookbag is as natural as packing a notebook. Wow!
I'd never thought of myself having a digital immigrant accent, but the paragraph on pg. 2 of this article described me perfectly. I am guilty of calling to see if someone received an email, yelling down the hall to come look at a site I found on the computer, and I print out my papers to edit them. It's no wonder my students sometimes look at me as if I was speaking "Greek". I guess I do sometimes confuse them just because we are talking from two different places. Even though I'll always keep my accent, hopefully I'll become more fluent at Techno-talk.
How great....our students run towards our technological problems. Where we lack, they make up for us. Thank goodness we have them to teach US.
ReplyDeleteI have had a great experience these past few weeks with being able to let a student of mine be my tech person. When studetns need help getting on a website or looking things up he is the guy everyone calls on. It has freed up a lot of my time and it has allowe him to have a sense of responsibility. He inturn has taught other students to do his job so that when he can not get to something as quick as needed they can help out. I also love that I have students that have been able to tell me technological short cuts to make things move quicker during instructional activities. Kids are amazing if we strive to understand that language they speak.
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