Chapter One of our text book, Blogs, Wikis, Pod casts etc., poses an excellent point about our ever increasing tendency to post our thoughts, opinons and intimate details of our personal human experiences. Every person with access is able to contribute to a larger body of knowledge that is the Internet.
Soon after the text points out that this era of personal record keeping has lead to an expectation that we all always be "plugged in". When an individual does not post on a blog or social networking site for an extended period of time, they will be subject to the questioning of their peers. This lack of online communication leads our online peers to assume that something is wrong. Out text refers to this as a new transparency. In other words, the world is not only getting smaller, but its becoming increasingly difficult to hide.
And we wonder why our students seem to be a generation of multi-taskers. We wonder why they have difficulty sitting still and listening to us lecture in class. The text points out that kids are growing up developing "hypertext minds" that can think with parallel minds where those of us who are older may only be able to think linearly. As educators we need to be aware of these tendencies in our students and use their tech savy, "plugged-in" nature to their advantage in the classroom instead of constantly requiring them to simply be still and listen to us talk.
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you have been some very good observations about the fact that with technology (computers, internet, ipods, cell phones, etc.) it is very difficult to "hide". As a society we are always "plugged in" to something aren't we? I know that I am on the computer at least once or twice a day (I know that probably doesn't seem like much when you compare it to the young folk!) or I "freak" if I have forgotten my cell phone. How did we ever survive 15-20 years ago?? My point is that I thought Richardson touched on some profound aspects of how we are connected (via technology) but we are also sacrificing are privacy to some extent. It may not seem so to the younger generation since this is all they have known so its not like they think they have "lost" something. But I do think there is some goodness to being able to get away from it all:-)
ReplyDeleteYou wrote that teachers wonder why kids cannot sit still and listen to teachers give direct instruction--or lectures. I agree that all of the technology they have available may create in them their "hypertext" minds. However, I do not think technology is completely to blame for their inability to sit still. I also think that teachers need to reacher deeper into that bag of motivational tricks that is often hard to find. I believe that teachers need to adapt--not only to technologically savvy kids, but also to new strategies for instructing these kids.
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