Meeting the needs of our students

Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules.-Marshall McLuhan, 1967 (cited in blog on the side)

This idea is explored in Michael Wesch’s video “A Vision of students today” and resonates with me as I wonder how many of my students really feel fully engaged with what we are doing in lessons.

With our overloaded curriculum, number of classes we see everyday and pressure of exams and other assessments do we really take enough time to know our students and what shapes them and constitutes engagement for them? This video has reminded me of the importance of this aspect of teaching and that we can know our students really well but until we ask them vital questions like: What does learning look like for you? What motivates you to do well? What is your goal for this year? What do you need to be successful in this subject? How are things going for you this year? How do you feel about this subject and why? we won't know the whole truth. Something to action with my classes this week.

I also viewed Wesch’s presentation at the University of Manitoba “A Portal to Media Literacy” (June 17 2008)



One of the main contentions outlined in this presentation is “There are no natives here…”. Wesch challenges Prensky’s notion of “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”:

What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.

Wesch contends that there are no digital natives because most technology is new and students don’t necessarily know how to use the technologies available to learn or to create something interesting and new. His challenge to teachers is to encourage students to see that new media is not just for entertainment; it can help them educationally as well.

I found this argument a bit more comforting than Prensky’s label “Digital Immigrant”, although I can see that using technology is not as instinctive for me as it is for some (but not all) of my students.

Wesch’s challenge is one that I feel I am beginning to help my students learn – that online networking and other technologies can be of benefit for them socially and in terms of their learning, especially if they collaborate with other students to create new meaning.

Am I doing enough to prepare my students for the future? Probably not, but I feel that I am doing my best while working within the constraints of the NZ education system.