The purpose of schools should be to prepare children for their future, whatever it is that may be. The future being indiscernible makes an educator’s profession challenging, but not impossible. Educators need to enhance their students’ strengths by providing opportunities for social, emotional, mental, and academic growth. Classrooms and schools need to place value on all kinds of knowledge because there is no one single form of intelligence nor do we know what kinds of knowledge and skills will be valued in the future. It is up to us to understand who our students are on a personal level and what motivates, excites, perplexes, and challenges them. In order to do these tasks correctly we can use digital resources to help us know our students on a more personal level.
As adults we need to recognize that technology is a massive part of our lives whether or not we want it to be. It is almost impossible to avoid using some form of technology on a daily basis. Jeff DeGraff in his article “Digital Natives Vs. Digital Immigrants” defines the generational gap that exists between these two groups. Adults are now being labeled as “digital immigrants” – people born before the advent of digital technology and their counterpart is being labeled as “digital natives” – the generation of people born during or after the rise of digital technologies. While there are major difference in the belief and value system of these groups there is a tremendous lesson to be learned when both groups are open to learning from each other.
Yong Zhao, a scholar on technology and globalization in education offers some staggering statistics based on children’s use of media tools on a daily basis. Today’s young people (8 to 18 year olds) spend on average 7 hours and 38 minutes a day with media: watching TV (TV, videos, DVDs, pre-recorded shows), playing video games, listening to music, talking on the phone, and chatting with friends online. Alternately, children spend 25 minutes a day reading books, 9 minutes for magazines, and 3 minutes for newspapers. Zhao believes that as parents and educators, rather than trying to minimize the exposure children have with social media and technology tools we should embrace and understand their curiosity and happiness with all forms of technology.
If children can create pathways to better understand academic material through the use of technology then as educators we need to re-examine our skills and practices to meet the needs of our students. To accomplish these goals, as adults we need to make ourselves accessible to our students and create with them a collective sense of an open understanding and learning environment.
The 5 to 9 Teacher 