Cleared Up Thoughts

I have to put one personal thing here, before I dive into my thoughts. I am very sad that our FSU Softball team lost tonight and are no longer in the NCAA Tournament. This was their best season on record, and I am sad that I no longer get to follow their journey this season. I just love them so much! 

Now, on to my thoughts that have been cleared up! 

Earlier this week, I did my readings, like I do at the beginning of every week. I read the Prensky article about digital natives and I thought about myself and also about the students I teach. I thought about how I am technically a digital native, but an earlier one. I thought about how kids today have much more experience with technology than I do. But then, after I posted in the discussion board, Rachel Wellman (shoutout!) brought up a great counterpoint and said that just because they are from this younger generation doesn't mean that they will have the same access to technology as the rest of their peers. This got me thinking about how true that really is. In Tallahassee, the northside of town is of higher socioeconomic status than the southside of town. It would make sense that the kids that come from a higher socioeconomic status would be "better" digital natives because they have what other kids don't - access. This led to me rereading (and not just skimming) the other articles that were given for our weekly reading. I then explored on my own what others had to say about digital natives. There are conflicting thoughts out there about the term and how it applies to the kids today.

In all, I now feel differently about the term. I think that it's still appropriate to use because the youth have more technology than any other generation. But I think that to say that kids will have a better opportunity to learn because they are from this generation puts a certain pressure not only on them, but on instructors as well. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A List of Favorites

Who would I be if I weren't consistent? The discussion board has once again got me thinking about the topic of this blog post. So without further ado, here is my list of favorites from this semester!  Favorite Challenge: The Week Long Twitter Challenge! So fun getting to interact with each other and not have to be so formal, like discussion board posts!  Favorite Tool:  It's a tie between Padlet and Trello. They are super similar, but both have unique features that allow you to do different things.  Favorite Week/Topic: Week 2, Digital Natives & Produsage. This is the week that thinks really started to take shape in my mind, so it stands out as the favorite for me!  Favorite Assignment:  Definitely the Produsage assignment. It allowed me to be creative and to think outside of my comfort zone, which is what I need sometimes :) Favorite Discussion Question:  This was a hard one. I did a lot of searching through the discussion boards, but ultimate de...
Read more

Teaching + Social Media

It's for some and by some, I mean a select few.  I, for one, have no desire to use social media in my classroom. I'll just add it to my already never-ending list of things to do during a school day. Half the time, I'm just trying to get all of my subjects taught during the day. However, I do think that there are benefits to using social media to teach.  Students now have access to way more information than that of any other generation. Everything they need to know is right at their fingertips. They know how to use Google, Alexa, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc. Teachers could use this to their advantage. I love the projects where teachers assign students to create a social media profile for historical figures or literary characters. When I was in high school it was a Facebook profile, now it's more like Instagram. It gives students a sense of ownership in their own learning.  I've seen TikToks get made by students who are posting for a class. They have certain para...
Read more

What a Week

This week has been L O N G. We finished up testing this week at school and we are in our final countdown of "______ Days 'Til Summer" (it's 8 btw!!) We are also in the process of wrapping up meetings and making sure that students who need summer school are good to go. It's going to be a long last 8 days as well. However, this week got me thinking about the terms in this class and how often I use them. Social media is part of my daily life. I connect with people all the time through it. And I don't even mean like finding old friends or anything like that. I mean I connect with people I already know like sending them posts, tagging them in giveaways and tweeting at them. I think that connect with them through social media has helped me develop a sort of online community. I'm hopeful that this doesn't really change as the years go on, because I love getting to learn and discover new things through the lens of social media. 
Read more