Welcome to the 21st Century
(with apologies for the tardiness)
Most of us have met them. If we teach in independent schools, higher decile schools or teach in more privilaged areas they are becoming increasingly common. Even the more short sighted of teachers can see them increasing as our future becomes increasingly electronic. Whether we call them Digital Natives (Marc Prensky), Digital Children (Ian Jukes), Neo-Millennials (Dieterle-Dede-Schrier) or 21st Century Learners (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach ) they are increasingly becoming the future of teaching.
So what are they?
Well they are students who are shaped by there environment. The environment they are exposed to is media rich, immediate, fast, engaging, dynamic and instant. Its electronic and digital, Its a communication medium with instant gratification. Marc Prensky, described the array of media the students are exposed to in his papers on Digital Natives I & II .
This obviously has a huge effect. Digital Natives, those students who, through consistent exposure to these factors and access to a variety of digital media, are engaged and motivated by the use of digital technologies. They are adept in the use of digital medium, and as Dieterle-Dede-Schrier and Marc Prensky wired to used these tools.
So what is a Digital Native, a Digital Child, A Neo-Millennial or 21st Century Learner?
It helps perhaps to look at a digital native in reference to someone we are familiar with: A teacher, who is moer often than not as Marc would describe them, a Digital Immigrant. (source: Educational Origami )
These changes in prefered method and mode of learning are changing and shaping the way we teach (21st Century Teachers), how we design and build our classrooms (21st Century Learning Spaces) and how we are resourced (facilitating 21st Century Learning or taking a measure of ICT integration). For teachers to engage and educate, to facilitate and motivate, our methods of teaching must match their methods of learning; our teaching spaces must reflect their learning spaces; our teaching tools and resources must support their learning strategies. There must be in short, a paradigm shift in education . Teachers must become 21st Century learners and more.
(The posts refered to above have been incorperated into the educational origami wiki. If you would like to contribute to these please become a member of the space and add to them .)
Resources:
Educational Origami - http://edorigami.wikispaces.com
Have our classrooms really changed that much?
May 26th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Interesting chart, Andrew. Are you talking secondary teachers and students? Must be I guess. I can see that many of the characteristics in the right column are from a previous time/paradigm (to a large extent) but I cant see them as typical characteristics of teachers that I have worked with, with the exception of a preference to real world. But thats probably just a matter of exposure.
Second thing that occurs to me is that all the adults I work with in education are way more adoptive and adept with new technologies than the students they teach. I find Prensky’s natives and immigrants analogy slightly insulting on a personal level as I have grown up with technology too - my world is also “media rich, immediate, fast, engaging, dynamic and instant, etc”.
And then there’s the matter of multitasking - personally I think thats a myth, especially if we are talking about tasks requiring cognition. Thanks for the thought provoking writing…
May 27th, 2008 at 7:02 am
HI Jedd,
Nice to hear from you. Yes, I am a secondary teacher so this does have a secondary focus.
I am pleased to hear that you don’t find it typical, that does give me hope. I would also suspect that your selection of teachers may be slightly bias given the role you have as an advocate for ICT.
I suspect that like Marc’s digital natives it is a matter of exposure to technologies at a high frequency. Seeing a computer does not make you a native, repeated conditioning via frequent use does. Is it age dependent? No probably not, but its likely to be more common in the younger member of society, particularly our students, just from sheer volume of exposure to these technologies, and this I believe is a factor of reducing cost, increased accessability and widespread acceptance and adoption. You can’t be a native or digital with out the access to the technology.
Your comment about adoptive and adaptive is one of the points I made in 21st Century teachers. We as teachers, have to look at the technology and place it in context of our curriculum. I believe are digital kids are great at using the technology, they are intuitive in the use of the tools, but lack the vision to be able to apply it - this is a key role of the teacher.
Thanks for the comment - this is part of the power of this medium, the ability to discuss and debate, it makes it fun
Andrew
June 1st, 2008 at 2:43 am
Thanks for the post, Andrew - especially the graphics. Any chance of the table being made available without the Select table column tooltip?
June 1st, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi Doug
Thanks for that - I hadn’t notice and will update the graphic…