ilearning: embrace the shift from paper to pixel

I recently read Listen to the Natives by Marc Prensky and while what he is telling us in this article is not entirely new to me, I took away some ideas about teaching that I consider quite valuable.

Initially I tried to evaluate where I am with technology based learning. I feel as though I stand somewhere between what he calls "digital native" and "digital immigrant". As he describes, I often rather jump right into using a new program or technological "toy" as a means to learn its function though in some cases this can become over whelming and I'll seek the advice of a neatly printed manual for assistance. While reading the instructions for a new phone, computer, camera, or game system is a rarity, I'm reluctant to toss any form of instructions should I fail to master the gadget purely through immersion. I doubt that I'm as intensely fluent in today's technology as I know my younger siblings in jr. high and high school are, but I'm not nearly as much of an outsider as Prensky assumes most educators and administrators are today. (Of course with the date of publication being a few years old (2006) and the rate at which technology is moving, it is very possible that much of what he was writing then is becoming or already is outdated.)

Something Prensky stated that I found particularly interesting had nothing at all to do with technology. It is actually a teaching skill void of technology and yet he felt it important to mention as he discussed where teaching and learning should be headed. These are the concepts and practices of empathy and guidance. In a world where the curriculum is able to change by the hour, an educator must truly serve as a facilitator who understands how to guide students and show compassion, two things the computers in a classroom will not and cannot do.

Beyond the point about empathy, I felt that Prensky's view on how students need to become more involved in making classroom decisions was right on target. Students now have a different understanding of how interactive the world can be. They go online and contribute to whats on the web but are faced with a very different set of rules in the classroom. Some of the traditional standards of teacher and student need to evolve and acknowledge the new awareness students are developing at earlier and earlier stages in education.

From my own experience, my 13 and 16 year old sisters will simply pick up a laptop and Google any piece of information they don't know when having a conversation with someone at home. That just shows that students today want to learn and are actively seeking out the knowledge they crave. Educators need to make better use of these instincts about technology. A good start would be jumping into it and potentially asking the students for help, after all they are native to this developing realm of education.