Journal 5: Synching Up with the iKid: Connecting to the Twenty-First-Century Student

Synching Up with the iKid: Connecting to the Twenty-First-Century Student
by Josh McHugh

This article by opens with the case of a high school English teacher Diane Hamstra how let her students in grade 10th to use the software application called DyKnow Vision to analyse several passages from a novel on computer screens at their desk. She then displayed their work in from of the class. The students also analysed similar passages but this time they used pen and paper. Hamstra noted that the responses her students gave when they used the software where more deep that the responses she got with pen and paper.

According to Josh McHugh this is not surprising since many of the student grew up in a “techno-drenched atmosphere” that has train them to absorber and process information in different ways. He mentions that in a survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that many young people use electronic media for more that six hours a day, and many of those times this Young people is multitasking, for example listening to music and text messaging friends or surfing the Internet. He also mentions that the results in a survey by the National Governors' Association students answered that they would work harder in their coursework if it were more interesting or challenging.

According to McHugh this “new generation of digital learners” interpret the world via the filter of computing devices that why many school and teachers are try to incorporate to figure out which of all this technologies can be used for educational purposes. In the search of educational technologies that can reach and excite students mind we can see a rapid use of “collaborative course-management systems” such as DyKnow and “social technologies” such as blogs, wikis. Children learn better by actually retain far more knowledge by creating their own learning environment that by the the ordinary teaching methods. According to MacHugh this implies relinquishing a degree of control to students but help students learn better.

How can we get more teacher to integrate technology for instructional applications?
Although I think this is not going to be a problem for future teacher, since they are partly digital learners. Many teacher that were not digital learners may find it difficult even start understanding so many new technologies let alone integrated into the classroom. Therefore, I think that we should start by introducing this teacher to all this new technologies and help them be proficient in them so then they can use it in their classrooms.

What is a key aspect for maximising the learning of digital learners?
First, teachers should try to understand what motivates this new generations of learner. A good way to do this is by keeping him or herself to date with new technologies emerging and be able to evaluate them in order to use them in the classroom, in this way teacher could connect educational content to what their students are doing outside the classroom.