What are the implications for teaching & learning?

"What are the implications for teaching and learning?"

by Marc Prensky

Within a few decades or so we'll begin 22nd century education. Using theories from quantum mechanics or physics or some thing like that, we'll be able to scan the brains of students to determine with alarming precision their future as learners. Computers will then spit out a life-long education plan for them and that will be that. This will begin with increasing use of MRIs. First, we'll hook all the kids' heads up to an MRI and monitor their brain activity while in the classroom. Maybe even give them a little zap when we notice they're drifting off, or that the anger center of the brain is activated when the word "grammar" is mentioned. Soon, however, rather than hooking each kid up to clumsy MRI machines, one giant MRI will remotely monitor each student in every class, both as an individual and as a whole class. The whole-class patterns will be used to determine teacher advancement and salary. Teachers will not only be zapped with a jolt of e-juice to the brain when they begin searching online for airfares while their charges are taking a test, the teachers will also be zapped when they even THINK about the next holiday or activate the anger region of the brain when little Billy has his hand up for the 80th time with another no-doubt idiotic comment or request to use the loo.

"This trend is important, but it's hardly new -- it will be new only when those courses, curricula, and lesson plans are very different and technology influenced, (WHY? This is begging the question at its best--or worst, I guess!") when they are set up so they can be found and mixed and matched easily, when they are continually iterated and updated, and when the kids have a big say in their creation." Yeah, give a kids a say in the creation, but what does that have to do with technology, other than that it's easy to do with computers?

".........................but the records and assessments we ask for and keep, for the most part, haven't changed." So??? Are those records somehow "bad"?

"These include buying school materials (clothes, supplies, and even homework) on eBay and the Internet; exchanging music on P2P sites; building games with modding (modifying) tools; setting up meetings and dates online; posting personal information and creations for others to check out; meeting people through cell phones; building libraries of music and movies; working together in self-formed teams in multiplayer online role-playing games; creating and using online reputation systems; peer rating of comments; online gaming; screen saver analysis; photoblogging; programming; exploring; and even transgressing and testing social norms. An important question is, How many of these new ways will ever be integrated into our instruction -- or even understood by educators" ********Actually, the important question is SHOULD THEY BE???????????????????? I mean really, what's the point of listing all of the crap above? To scare people, to turn off teachers who might have a glimmer of interest but are technophobes? Maybe the author here is trying to show off how cool he is? As I read I hope he will be able to tell me WHY a teacher should understand the applications he's talking about. Anyhow, it's not even about understanding or knowing how to use the applications, it's understanding why people use them, what the point of them is, and of course how they can be used to facilitate learning.

By the way, are we ever going to read articles about why technology is bad or shouldn't be used to facilitate learning? And again, I find myself coming back to all of those millions of classrooms and billions of people who are not "connected"

The Big Tech Barrier: One-to-One:

The more I read this article the more I want to barf. Where is the evidence? Where is even the WHY WHY WHY? It sounds like the author is describing his dream classroom. I completely disagree with the concept of having one-to-one computing when the main criteria is so kids can "customize" the thing and take it home. No no no. Should they be able to go to any computer, log on, and get the customization that way, is in through some of the stuff we've been talking about.....igoogle, google docs, etc., etc. What do they need to customize a particular machine for??????

"Many schools still ban new digital technologies, such as cell phones".............OK, but why should students have them? I think that problem here is definitely an "old school" thought in that why should a kid have a cell phone in class--because most teachers who've been around for a few years had as their first introduction to cell phone in the classroom constant ringing...

"First, consult the students. They are far ahead of their educators in terms of taking advantage of digital technology and using it to their advantage." I think we have to be very, very careful with ideas like this. Mainly because it feeds into the idea that "kids are so much better at all that tech stuff than I am." This is simply not true, at least not in a way that applies meaningfully to their educations.

As I read on, it became clearer and clearer that this was an opinion piece trying to pull itself off as hard fact. There is just now evidence in the article nor is there any how; it's all just "what you're doing is bad." There are just some many logical holes in the presentation and points to debate it's hardly worth mentioning more than I already have.

As I sit and think about this for a while, the one issue that springs to mind with all of it for me at least is trust, as in trusting our students to use technology appropriately. For example, if students are sharing a google doc and using that application's chat feature, what's to stop them from abusing the chat. Well, what should stop them is the students themselves and the teacher having created something meaninful enough that the kids don't want to waste time with too much mindless chit-chat.

White paper pp 35-39

"Rather than seeing socializing and play as hostile to learning, educational programs could be positioned to step in and support moments when youth are motivated to move from friendship-driven to more interest-driven forms of new media use."

Directly above is a key element: many of the students are savvy when it comes to tech applicaitons for social networking, file sharing, music downloads, etc., howerver, we will find success with all of these applications when we create an educational enviroment that foster the interest-driven motivation to use it.