My apologies to all for falling soooo far behind on my blogging. Between my crazy job and another Lesley class I've been stretched very thin! I have this week off and look forward to the opportunity to finally get caught up and enjoy all this course has to offer!
Tammie and I talked about Chapter 1 when we met last weekend. The dominant theme of the first chapter for me is that we are teaching a very different student than ten, or twenty years ago. The "digital native", the "multi-tasker" or the "Generation Y" student.
Our student of today has a very short attention span and responds best to visual presentation such as videos and pictures. So how does this knowledge influence how I teach and what I do?
Without reading this chapter, it's clear the good old line up the desks and stand and lecture does not work anymore. I'm dancing on the desks to keep their attention for ten minutes of instruction before I have them try something new these days.
Thoughts for teaching... I'm dying to try creating an instructional video of the next thing I teach one of my classes and then ask for feedback as well as assessing how much they learned. Will they pay more attention to a video than to me in front of them?
The chapter also speaks of "peer based learning". Digital tools make collaboration and student enthusiasm an easy mark to achieve. "Thus youth can become heavily invested and committed to sharing their creative efforts and resources and providing feedback and critique to peers." One of the ISTE NETS Standards is "Communication and Collaboration". Opportunities for students to work together online are a great training for life beyond school as these modes of communication continue to grow socially (Facebook etc.) and professionally.
I've attached a link about Generation Y that was shared with me in another Lesley class I'm taking. It gives more details on where our students of today are coming from...
http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/2_05_05/pause.html
Marty,
ReplyDeleteTo help with your idea for creating an instructional video to help teach your class, take a look at http://www.viddler.com/. Richard Byrne from FreeTech4Teachers blogged about this site and recommended using it to create sub plans. I don't see why you couldn't use the same site to create your instructional videos.
I agree with you that with our students today and their unbelievably short attention spans, I feel like I have to enrich every lesson with interactive media just to keep them focused. And speaking of videos, if you ever teach a unit on PowerPoint/Keynote, trouble-shooting technology, or Internet safety let me know. I have found some great videos to go along with these lessons that I'd be happy to share.
I would be very interested to hear the results of your experiment.
ReplyDeleteI have made it through the book and am really anxious to hear your thoughts on the Role Playing and Virtual World chapters. I have a fairly strong opinion but am wondering whether or not it is just my biases shining through!
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, I'd love to see the videos you've used before and I'm just starting out Powerpoint with my sixth graders and contemplating a rework of our internet safety unit. I'll also give Viddler a look. Many thanks!
Marty
Hi Tammy,
ReplyDeleteI'll let you know how the "experiment goes". I'll hold off on reading your posts for chapter 5 and chapter 6 until I've read the chapters and then dive in!
For PowerPoint, check out this great YouTube video on "How not to do Presentations" by comedian Don McMillian (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORxFwBR4smE). I used www.keepvid.com to download the video and embedded it in a Keynote slide. It always gets a good laugh from my students and is a great spring board into the rest of my lesson.
ReplyDelete