Comment

Comment by Dr. Valerie D'Aguanno on March 21, 2008 at 10:30am

I believe students want to learn and enjoy learning. Digital natives share a common culture that is defined by attributes and experiences related to how they interact with information technologies, information itself, one another, and other people and institutions. Digital natives enjoy being connected and taking in information from a variety of sources. For the most part, many schools do a poor job of taking advantage of this culture. At home, the typical digital native (especially tweens and teens) will listens to their iPod and instant messaging several friends all while doing research or homework on the computer. When he or she finishes their homework, time will be spent updating either MySpace or FaceBook and then they will engage with people globally in online games such as Half-life or WOW (or some other online game) for several more hours. If schools could engage students with as much energy as their home activities do, imagine what they could be learning. If we weren’t so focused on teaching to assessments, imagine the creativity that could be brought back into classrooms through good curriculum. Imagine digitally...

Comment by Blanca Duarte Martini on March 4, 2008 at 9:56pm

Do you believe students are disinterested in school because we don't use the technologies that many of them have available in creating their learning environments? Or because they are overstimulated? Understimulated? I would like to believe that these students will NOT be dissuaded from following paths they want to choose because they feel their education is somehow inadequate. I would be interested in other's perceptions about students in school, especially HS. Why do schools struggle with graduating students? How do they really feel when they watch videos like these?