Digital Immigrant!

My younger brother called me the other day to ask if I knew how to create a Youtube channel so he could upload videos for the high school wrestling team he coaches.  My reply- ask one of your students!  I mean, I had to consult my husband’s eighth grade cousin for a tutorial on how to navigate the simplest functions on my i-Phone 4 (and apparently the “4” is, indeed, necessary as in a matter of mere months after purchase of said iPhone the newer, more advanced model had already moved on to the scene)!  As a college freshman, I will never forget watching in awe as a friend wrote a document to a classmate and sent it to her… on the computer.  Email? Whaaaaat??  And imagine my surprise when, during my second year of teaching I asked a student where the card catalog was located in the library, uh I mean Media Center- crickets, blank stare.  Clearly (or not so clearly), I was speaking a foreign language.  Don’t tell anyone, but I still have an overhead projector in my classroom!  Though the document camera has replaced it for day-to-day use, it is tucked high on a shelf for “old time’s sake”.  Yes, this thirty-something is proud to admit I am a Digital Immigrant!  I strive to be one of the “smart ones”, to allow myself to open up to advancements in technology although my preference is to remain among the comforts of the original Nintendo, telephones actually attached to the wall, and an overhead projector, for example.  (The thought of all those waves- fax, emails, texts- zinging through the air totally weirds me out!)  As educators, how can we expect to advance ourselves if we do not accommodate to the “advanced” learning styles of our clientele?  I find the concept of “parallel processing” fascinating.  I had never encountered that term before, but it makes complete sense!  As clearly pointed out in the video Vision of Students Today- “[students] have to be” multi-taskers and parallel processors, that is.   Equally intriguing is the idea of a change in thinking patterns of the younger generation (which, subsequently, I am struggling to come to grips with the fact I am NOT a part of; I don’t consider myself that old, but in digital terms apparently I am ancient!)  “Changed thinking patterns” hit particularly close to home considering I have an eight month old son.  A couple weeks ago I was horrified at the sight of my husband showing our son a little video on his phone.  In my teacher-researcher manner I informed him about the article I read regarding exposing children to technology too soon.  In his computer techie-gamer manner he replied failure to exposure may put him behind later on.  After reading “Digital Natives” I realize there is validity to his argument, though I maintain the baby is a bit too young to be exposed to Avian Anger… (LOL, as the Natives would say)!  With the combination of the fact students today “think and process information fundamentally differently than predecessors” and the capability of anyone to upload content to the digital world easily (as mentioned in The Machine is Using Us) my hope is they maintain the capacity to think critically, rather even more critically, than “predecessors”.  In our new methodology, we must keep this- teaching critical thinking skills- in mind in order to link the old with the new.  THE AUTHOR hit the nail on the head in clarifying “can’t pay attention vs. choose not to” and in more poignantly noting the student may not feel it is worth his or her time to pay attention (specifically relating to the “old school” teaching styles).  This notion is very easy for me to wrap my mind around and one I attempt to problem solve every day considering a major component of Autism (at least the teens I work with) is the perception: what you have to say (teach) does not fit in to my world or matter to me directly in any way, therefore I am not going to give it the time of day.  When I employ techniques such as connecting minutes spent on math to time allowed with Godzilla figures or demonstrating parallels between Tom and Jerry to Romeo and Juliet the concepts suddenly gain value.  Indeed, my students are those who can memorize hundreds of Pokemon facts (or Bakugan as the case might be).  Inventing computer games with embedded skills to be learned is genius; the market is certainly emerging and would be an effective, no-brainer teaching technique for students on the Spectrum in particular.  Perhaps I should get my Immigrant “Work Visa” ready for the shift!!