Swamped! and other ramblings...

School started two and a half weeks ago and this is the first time since that I have had a chance to come up for air! When I finally had time to open my Bloglines account I found myself staring at the daunting task of perusing over 500 posts…needless to say that didn't happen.

I have had a chance to read a few of the more recent additions to the edublogosphere (is that even a word? My spell checker says definitely not) and I found a couple of discussions particularly interesting.

First, Terry Freedman's post on adopting a set of standards for basic technology competence for educators. I worked in a school district that paid an outside consultant to come in and teach district educators about using technology in the classroom. By the way, the outside consultant was one of the district's many technology applications teachers. Part of the program was a series of classes that were supposed to give teachers different levels of technology skills. If you took all the classes (three series of 10 classes if I remember right) then you would be given the title of "Master Technology User".

The crux of his argument is sound: we should expect teachers to be a least technologically literate at the most basic of levels. I think that we should carry it a step further though: every educator should have at least a moderate technology literacy level. Technology should be seamlessly integrated into what the students are learning - making the technology nearly invisible in the learning process. I do not see teachers that only have a basic knowledge of how to turn on a computer, use the mouse and check email making this reformation-type change in our classrooms. Students today need to know how to find appropriate/accurate information, apply it to new situations and analyze outcomes. I firmly believe that this can happen with technology as a fluid portion of the curriculum.

Secondly, something in Terry's post struck me as unusual. He derides the term "digital native" as inaccurate and overused. He supports his statement with the fact that he was using computers in his classroom in 1975. I agree that it has become a buzz-word and is probably over used among educators but, I think he is not the norm for people that were teaching in 1975. He is obviously an early-adopter and perhaps even a "bleeding-edger". Of course there are people out there that do not fit into the mold of digital native/digital immigrant - that's always true when you stereotype a group of people, especially when you are talking about a whole generation.

You have to put yourself in the perspective of the students. High school seniors this year were born in 1989-1990. My mom had her first cell phone in the late 80s and there were plenty of people with them prior to that. These kids have never known life without portable phones. Do they know what a rotary phone is? Yes. But have they ever heard pulse dialing? I seriously doubt it. How does this pertain to this discussion? Students today tend to be more in-tune with utilizing new technologies because they have been programmed since birth to understand how to push a button. They pick-up intuitive hardware/software and have a basic ability to utilize it in a matter of minutes. Does that mean they ever master the technology? No. They may never master it, but the basic understanding of how it can be used is often enough to cause adults to frown.

There is no digital native/immigrant myth - it is fact. If people do not continue to learn throughout life then they will eventually find themselves a stranger in a strange land, an immigrant.


"Agitate! Agitate! Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation - the one is life, the other death." - Ernestine L. Rose