All Annotations of Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner | Edutopia[Preview]

saved by53 people, first byQien Kuen on 2008-05-29, last byAshley Siegel on 2008-08-12

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• One of the strangest things in this age of young people's empowerment is how little input our students have into their own education and its future.
• One of the strangest things in this age of young people's empowerment is how little input our students have into their own education and its future. Kids who out of school control large sums of money and have huge choices on how they spend it have almost no choices at all about how they are educated -- they are, for the most part, just herded into classrooms and told what to do and when to do it
• One of the strangest things in this age of young people's empowerment is how
  little input our students have into their own education and its future. Kids who
  out of school control large sums of money and have huge choices on how they
  spend it have almost no choices at all about how they are educated
• So, whenever and wherever I speak, I do my best to bring my own students to the meetings. I ask my hosts to select a panel of a half-dozen or so kids of different grade levels, genders, and abilities to talk with me and the audience.
• • What experiences in school really engaged you?
  
  
  • How do you use technology in school as opposed to outside of school?
  
  
  • What are your pet peeves?
• • What experiences in school really engaged you?
  
  
  • How do you use technology in school as opposed to outside of school?
  
  
  • What are your pet peeves?
• When I first started doing these panels, I regret, I took no notes. But over the past year I have tried to write down as many of the comments as possible. I have heard some enormously insightful comments from the students, particularly about the differences between students and their teachers. "There is so much difference between how students think and how teachers think," offered a female student in Florida. A young man commented, "You think of technology as a tool. We think of it as a foundation -- it's at the basis of everything we do."
• A young man commented, "You think of technology as a tool. We think of it as a
  foundation -- it's at the basis of everything we do."
• Stone describes CPA as the need "to be a live node on the network," continually text messaging, checking the cell phone, and jumping on email. "It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis," she writes. "We pay continuous partial attention in an effort not to miss anything."
• Students universally tell us they prefer dealing with questions rather than answers, sharing their opinions, participating in group projects, working with real-world issues and people, and having teachers who talk to them as equals rather than as inferiors. Hopefully, this is useful information for teachers and other educators -- and it is important that educators realize just how universal these opinions are.

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  Synopsis

  
  

  Students have little input into the structure and substance of their own education. The traditional classroom lecture creates massive boredom, especially when compared to the vibrancy of their media-saturated, tech-driven world. But if we were to ask them, we'd learn they prefer questions rather than answers, sharing their opinions, group projects, working with real-world issues, and teachers who speak with them as equals rather than as inferiors.

  
  
  

  To Do

  
  
  
  
  • Talk to your students. They're filled with great ideas on how to integrate tech into the classroom.
  
  
  • Lead by listening. Skip the classroom lecture and initiate discussions instead.
  
  
  • Ask students: What experiences in school really engaged you? How do you use technology in school as opposed to outside of school? What are your pet peeves?

• 
  
  
  
  • Talk to your students. They're filled with great ideas on how to integrate tech into the classroom.
  
  
  • Lead by listening. Skip the classroom lecture and initiate discussions instead.
  
  
  • Ask students: What experiences in school really engaged you? How do you use technology in school as opposed to outside of school? What are your pet peeves?