The New Digital Divide

I really enjoyed listening to how others structured their thoughts on this week's readings via voicethread. Though a fan of the digital age, I'm highly in favor of in-person conversations over online communication whenever engaged in a real discussion, as social cues and intentions often come from tone, which has always been the difficulty with messageboards, forums, and comment threads. I was happy to see that a majority took the same approach as I did, in that this new version of the digital divide is enlightening, but somewhat makes sense with what we see in our lives. That helped me consider and collect my reflections in a way that tackled the point that I wanted to make, rather than retreading too much of the same ground. Hearing a lot of what others said got me excited about one small part of what I was originally going to talk about: the opportunities present on "the other side" of the divide, and using the access that students do have. I've already started brainstorming stuff for my own classroom in the fall.

The Digital Learner's Perspective

One of the things that shocked me this week was in the video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today".  In it, we see the statistic of 63% of a students' teachers do not have them create content, in a modern sense.  I had suspected that technology use in the classroom was lower than it should be, but that number still surprised me.  With as much technology and initiatives for technology use I see in meetings, I had assumed that the figure given would be lower.  I wonder if it is a case of only superficial use of technology.  One can certainly use aspects of the current digital age in a classroom without giving students the opportunity to actually create things themselves.  There may be a reluctance among older teachers to the idea of giving that much freedom to students to mess around with things that they, the teachers, themselves may not be as familiar with. 

Culturally, we need to realize that the next generation is always going to be one step up on us on new technology. I think that teachers should see this as an opportunity to learn something themselves, and let the students take the lead with this.  I know that I first saw Prezi used by a student in a project, long before a presentation that another teacher gave on using it in the classroom.  I've tried adapting this "teach me!" approach in my own classroom, and it was quite scary at first.  I had my students working on a project that, if they went about it in the most direct way, would involve video editing, something that I myself knew little about at the time.  By being honest with the students ahead of time that they may, in fact, know more about this subject than their teacher, I think the students bought into the project  a little more than they otherwise would have.  This especially helped when I made clear my willingness to learn.  One student decided to tackle a particular video editing program, and we worked through it together, learning about it.  I think it helped build a great rapport and led us to a lot more skill in using the program than either of us on our own would have gathered.

My video this weeks plays with the idea of an interview between a digital learner and myself as a teacher.  I wanted to keep the focus on the student and their needs, so I had them beginning the conversation, almost as if challenging the teacher with these facts and the idea that their needs are not being met.

Digital Declarations
by: narishma1