Teaching in the Digital Age

My eyes have been opened to the digital age and how teaching needs to change to meet the needs of this diverse generation of students.  After watching the video A Vision of Students Today, I found it amazing to think about how students may only read 8 books in a year, but they might look at 2,300 webpages and 1281 Facebook profiles in a year.  In addition, students may write only 42 pages for a class, but they might write 500 emails on their own time.  It is very clear that our definition of literacy needs to change, and students need to be taught certain skills to be successful in college and future careers.  In the article The New Literacy, David Warlick mentions four important skills for students to have to prepare them for their futures including exposing knowledge, employing information, expressing ideas, and ethics.  Similarly, Dr. Tony Wagner discussed seven skills this generation needs to enter the workforce successfully, which includes critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurism, effective oral and written communication, ability to access and analyze information, and curiosity and imagination.  All of these skills cannot be learned by students just opening a book and reading.  Students need to be a part of the learning process through engaging, meaningful instruction.  I am more of a digital immigrant, but I am excited to see how I can use more technology as I implement the Common Core Standards this school year.  I’m hoping I will be able to show students a new kind of literacy and help them become better communicators in this digital age.