Just found a really interesting video via Dean Giustini's Search Principle blog where four High schoolers discuss how they use technology for communication, problems they have with traditional education, and how they learn best.
They speak of the convenience of texting; e-mail is for corresponding with teachers or your aunt; used to multi-tasking ; bored with lectures ; texting with th ephone that is like an extension of your arm ; you can learn via mobiles, text Google for definitions and social media helps "like to give us independence and freedom to learn".
So much of this we have read in other places but like the thing that stood out to me was like it was WHY do they have keep saying LIKE all the time? There were 78 LIKES in 6 minutes 18 seconds!
There's been a lot said about the Web generation not being able to write (I do n't really accept this - twitter can be a great way of making us succinct) but it's the way that they express themselves which I notice. At that point my grumpiness will cease.
I do- like- recommend the video!
3 comments:
Hmm, I'm not sure it's just about "independence and freedom", though, isn't it also "don't push us outside our comfort zone"? And life-learning may require learning to concentrate on something hard for a while, by yourself, even if that isn't your "natural" way of working. In employment, you have to learn to work in ways that suit your employees and colleagues, too. Not that I'm an advocate (or indeed, normally, a practioner) of long uninterrupted lectures. I was thinking this is an interesting companion piece/ counterpoint to the Tara Brabazon lecture which I think you tweeted and I blogged http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2010/07/tara-brabazon-digital-dieting-guide.html
It is curious how the word "like" has been passed on from one generation of teenagers to another for how many years? 20? 30? more?
Robert Leamnson writes about the importance of language to learning in his book "Thinking About Teaching and Learning: Developing Habits of Learning with First Year College and University Students." Helping students and teenagers to enter into adult conversations where they express themselves in complete sentences can really be a useful endeavor.
Thanks for these 2 comments. It proves someone out there is reading my stuff!!!
I can appreciate where Sheila is coming from on this. I don't believe all students are like the ones in the movie, but I do suspect there is a problem of engagement with a large number of them if the old methods like large lectures are employed. Of course there are techniques which can be used to break these up and there are star performers. But suppose the students only ever see star performers? There has to be an element of grind in engaging with an academic subject at some point.
And thank you Spencer re. the importance of helping students an dteenagers to express themselves in complete sentences. None of this is new, and I suspect that it is not just the emphasis on screens that is to blame.
Isn't all this about academic rigour and the growing into a rounded individual, developing a mind of your own?
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