Glenda Sue Williams's Page

After reading these two articles - A day in a life of Web 2.0 and Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants- I have to agree that our students are geared differently today than how we grew up. Our kids today have had this technology around them since the day they were born and are used to the stimulation that this technology provides. I agree that their brains are different - wired differently than ours. Kids today are able to multitask and comprehend what is going on around them. Like the video showed when the kids where holding up the cards with statistics on them they will watch over 30,000 hours of watching TV and playing some form of video game - these are upto college grads. This number is staggering that they spend this much time on different technology. This is why as a teacher we need to understand this as well as the need to change the way we teach to incorporate the very essance that they enjoy and understand. If we add more technology into our classrooms the students will be able to follow and understand the material. That being said as a teacher I find this a daunting task to comprehend and complete. Not growing up with the technology and not having the education in these varies technological tools it is hard to figure out how to incorporate them into our lessons. It is also something that takes time too put together and if you do not have access to the computer for most of the day it is hard to create the work.

I am personally a digital immigrant - I feel that I know little bits and pieces and to put something together for my class may take hours and hours to create. I feel that I don't have that time unless I take away from my time with my family. I have limited access to my computer at school because I share it with three other teachers who all need to be on the computer at some point of the day. So creating at school is hopeless. Maybe someone out there may have a suggestion on how to get more of the technology in my classroom.

Again I want to restate that I see the advantage and I see that it could help my students but I have a time issue and the lack of knowledge to develop lessons that would stimulate and engage my students. I read a few of the blogs in the A day and A life of Web 2 and they all speak highly of the different technology available to use but they did say that time is an issue.