Week Two

            Wow…where to begin. Chapter 3 of Tapscott’s book, Grown up Digital, has a lot of information. I could almost write 8 different blogs on the 8 different norms talked in the chapter, but I can’t. So Ill pick two and talk about them; scrutiny and customization.

Scrutiny:

            In my geometry class my students are constantly scrutinizing everything that happens in class. And they should. It is part of the style of the class. In several of the chapters, statements are made and it is the student’s job to determine if the statement is always true, sometimes true or always false. An example of one of the statement was, “a square is a rectangle”. To determine the validity of the statement I notice some students went online and looked up the definitions for square and rectangle. They then determined that the statement is always true.

            In addition, net gens are good shoppers, “When they go shopping, almost two-thirds of Net Geners tell us, they search for information about products that interest them before they buy.” So in my class I teach my students about unit prices and their importance. “Comparing the unit price of similar products will insure that you get the best deal available.” (Montaldo)

Customization:

            This is one of the most important characteristics of the net generation. Customization gives people the feeling that what they have customized is their own. Whenever we do a project in class I allow my student to modify the project as much as possible. This gives more meaning to the projects.

            There is a really good article in Education Week, “Schools Use Digital Tools to Customize Education.” This article talks about the importance of giving students customization when it comes to their education. Student should be given a personalized path in their education. They should be able to choose what class they take. But we need to remember “it’s not about giving students what they want, it’s about a recommended learning path just for them.”  (Davis)

Sources:

Davis, M. (2011, March 14). Schools Use Digital Tools to Customize Education. Education Week, 30, 10-11.

Montaldo, D. (n.d.). Unit Pricing - The Real Price. About.com Coupons/Bargains. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from http://couponing.about.com/cs/aboutcouponing/a/unitpricing.htm

Tapscott, D. (2008). Grown Up Digital : How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.

Week One

I like how the Tapscott talks about how the technology is changing more that just the environment the students are in and how the use it. “They seem to behave, and even to be different” I see this a lot in the students that I teach. I have noticed that whenever I have my students take notes (on their computer) they tend to zone out when they finish copying the current PowerPoint slide being projected. They keep switching from their notes to a video game, to a video or to a website. When I call them on this, they are confused about why I am not happy them. In their mind they already took the notes and are just keeping them self busy until the next slide in the PowerPoint is displayed.(Tapscott) 

According to the article “Does PowerPoint help or hinder learning?” from the Faculty Focus website, PowerPoint has many good and bad uses. It can improve teachers in their teaching. But since people’s attention span these days is about 8 percent teachers need to be sure that their lessons are strong enough to keep their students attention. “Like so many instructional practices, PowerPoint is not inherently good or bad. It’s all about how we use it.”(Weimer)

There is a good article by the NY Times that continues the point about technology changing the way student behave, “Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say” In the article studies where conducted that found many teachers believed, the attention span among student is affected by their use of digital technology. Some teachers were even seeing technology as a distraction from the learning environment. I believe in the same counterpoint that Kristen Purcell brings up in the article “the education system must adjust to better accommodate the way students learn, a point that some teachers brought up in focus groups themselves.” (Richtel)

Overall I see that as the technology world grows and the net-generation starts having kids the environment they live in needs to change to accommodate to their new digital mind.  

Sources:

Richtel, M. (2012, November 1). Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say. NY Times.

Tapscott, D. (2008). Grown Up Digital : How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.

Weimer, M. (2012, August 1). Does PowerPoint Help or Hinder Learning?. Retrieved May 18, 2014, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/does-powerpoint-help-or-hinder-learning/