Jane’s Blog

I found another interesting PowerPoint with a brief coverage of many current technologies.

It has a brief introduction to Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Twitter, del.icio.us, Google Docs, Surveys, Wikis, Slideshare.net.

It is from The Whiteboard Blog.

In repsonse to Tania’s post, Oblinger and Oblinger seem to agree that age does not determine Net Gen entry!

Great news for us! They say:

“age is less important than exposure to technology”.

I agree (coming from a computing career to teaching)! However I don’t quite classify myself as a digital native in all aspects – I don’t do IM and I … don’t have an iPod (partly money priorities, partly time reasons).

The Oblingers recommend to ask yourself questions, like:

Are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand? YES!

Have you turned your “remembering” (phone numbers, meetings, and so on) over to a technology device? YES!

Do you go to meetings with your laptop or PDA? Sometimes!

Are you constantly connected? Is the Internet always on whether you are at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you? YES!

How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time? LOADS! as long as one is not an essay!

Do you play video or computer games? Well….

So maybe we are allowed to be considered as “part Net Gen”.

I don’t know if I believe Net Gen’s brain structures have changed. Does evolution work that fast? I am one of the first ones to start researching a project via Google or UTS Online Library – it’s easier!!! As Tania says don’t carbon date digital natives. Surely we all use technology when given the time, opportunity and motivation to do so…

… once we’ve picked the Net Gen 1 up from swim training, dropped Net Gen 2 off to Soccer Practice, packed Net Gen 3’s bag for Year 5 camp tomorrow, shopped, washed, cooked dinner …

In their future careers, will the Net Gen’s be glad we have taught them via IM and blogging and reinforced their ‘distractability’ or is it lack of attention span. Depends on their career choice – journalist or IT Professional – probably not, surgeon – hmm?

As one experienced teacher said “they either love you during the year and hate you after the exams, or hate you during the year and love you after the exams”. Once curriculum is not pressured by external exams and we can follow student-directed learning and interests then this will be a lot easier to do. But when you have your department head’s plan for the term with Lesson 1 Place Value, Lesson 2 Comparing Decimals, Lesson 3 Adding and Subtracting Decimals, Lesson 4 Multiplying and Dividing by powers of 10, Lesson 5 Multiplying by Whole Numbers and Decimals,…. What about rural schools vs wealthy city-based schools? I agree with Tracey’s posting on this one – the widening social divide.

Engagement, ah… that is another kettle of fish…

The Pros and Cons of Communicating via Instantaneous Technology

I am excited by the prospect of integrating technology into teaching high school students but I believe we also need to teach a new bag of social skills to go with the technology. We all know that teens are Net Gen’ers but we also know that there is a whole new world of social problems out there as a result of cyber-bullying, take for instance the Meier suicide in US.

I have been reading the Teen Culture articles and in particular Oblinger and Oblinger and am reminded of two things.

One, a Net Gen teen tells me how she is tired because her friend keeps texting her after midnight! “Turn off your phone when you go to bed…?” I suggest. One problem solved? Maybe. But this solution is not really appealing to Net Gen teen. Next, the same friend who texted at 1am and woke her is now an ex-friend due to the sleep-hazed terse reply to an invite. “You could try speaking to each other on the phone or even in person. Intonation and body language can help when communicating”…!

IM is useful but it has it’s place – maybe we should teach the Net Gen more about communication and social skills and what forms of communication are appropriate for what purpose. One acquaintance was complaining that she did not receive the SMS Wedding Invite from her friend who was upset that she had to ring her the week before the wedding due to her lack of RSVP!!!

Two, a play given by a public high school drama group at the ArtsNorth Drama Festival 2007 (held at UTS) about all the problems with technology and cyber-bullying – very insightful as students stand in line and get rearranged and depressed or elated depending on their new “friendship rank” based on IM amongst the group.

How effective is the learning when a person’s life is lived as “continuous partial attention” (Linda Stone, 1997 as quoted in Rainie)?

Next problem – we don’t all want to look like Mark Vaile with his cap facing backwards as he skateboards in his tie. How do we, digital immigrants, not look out of place to the digital natives?

Made available under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Licence:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Available at: http://www.northernriversacc.com.au/images/pic_mark_vaile.JPG