...so says Michael Wesch as he reflects on his use of technology to support learning. His experiences also highlight a key message in the New Zealand Curriculum...to explore new and different ways of teaching and learning. The reference to Prensky's (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants also challenge some of the assumptions that we might have around our use of technology and student learning.
As a cluster we are constantly exploring the changing role of the teacher and also our understanding of elearning as a pedagogical practice. Concurrently, while we recognise some students may have grown up with the technology and are confident adopters, this may not always automatically transfer to purposeful use that can impact positively on their learning? To engage with the technology simply to entertain without appreciating how it can be harnessed to make a difference to learning and consequently actions that are 'significant' involve development of new understandings about the technology for both teachers and students..."there are no natives here".
Michael Wesch explores these ideas and provides some useful frameworks, understandings and examples of a 21st Century teacher...well worth investing the time to listen and consider.
Thanks to Jo McLeay for highlighting.
More videos by Wesch and his students...Vision of Students Today, The Maching is Us/ing Us etc...
I came away from watching the video with that message resonating very strongly for me as well. Here are some of my takeaway points that I emailed to a couple of people:
ReplyDeleteDigital Natives vs Digital Immigrants
From the video - "There are no digital natives here - these are all new technologies" - I agree with this! think the digital natives/ immigrant message has had its day but was useful to get people thinking about the subject. This blog post pretty much sums up my feelings on this:
http://www.leadertalk.org/2007/06/digital_confusi.html
The Role of the Teacher
From the video - "They may be able to use these technologies to entertain themselves but they know nothing on how to use these things to learn and for critical thought or to create something interesting and new. You should never feel stupid in this environment as we are all stupid." - A great quote! A great teacher will always have a place no matter what the environment! We are there to help students make connections and be able to work effectively with these tools.
I have also started playing with some mobile technologies since watching the video that I hope to use in my pre-conference workshop.
I have added this video to the featured video area on Centre 4. I've also majorly updated the Media Centre area today so take a look :-)
I spent this evening watching another video that Michael has just posted about the anthropology of YouTube. Another hours watch but very interesting!
I watched this video and for two weeks now I have been playing in my Netvibes account to create a public space for connectivity between clusters.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a private space for aggregating feeds...but the potential is much bigger now. I never even noticed some of the widgets before. So exciting!
Thanks Suzie, will check out the media link on Centre 4. Have collated and categorised most of my videos in del.icio.us, ended up tagging my tags but think it works well...and it's quick.
ReplyDeletehttp://delicious.com/f.grant/video
Yes me too Tessa...had my NetVibes set up as my aggregator only and had not used my public space but have since set it up as a portal for my cluster...take a look.
ReplyDeleteVirtualNorth Portal
Quite useful~
ReplyDeletethx for sharing.