Written by I’m sure plenty of you heard the fascinating discussion on Metro Morning this morning about the latest findings from Centennial College’s Kids’ Media Centre on “the epidemiology of youth’s selfie-curated culture”. While this may not be directly relevant to the interests of Cohort21, which is about technology as pedagogy, I’m sure it will be of interest to all educators – and parents. You can read about it on KMC’s website or listen to the podcast on Metro Morning.
Whoah, Patti, I just had a chance to browse through this resource and I’m so interested.
Two of the French teachers at my school (one is on Twitter @Mme_Patterson) embarked on a #selfie project, which isn’t entirely related, but it was interesting how they tried to leverage this obvious powerful form of expression for learning.
Thanks for sharing this.
Hi Patti,
Thanks, and yes I did catch this. It is of interest because one of the things that we must keep in mind as teachers, is that we teach students. Simple concept, right? But wait, think about this: (disclaimer: I have these questions posted in my office for all teachers to see when they come in)
1) Do you think that the students you teach today are the same as 5, 10, 15 years ago? If yes, tell me why… If no, think about how they have changed…
2) Do you think that your teaching methods and pedagogy has changed in the past 5, 10, 15 years? If yes, how? If no, why do you believe that it doesn’t need to change?
So, of course these insights into popular culture can have relevance for sure. What is your take on this Instafame?
garth.
It’s a little hard for me to judge because I have taught all over the world, and so I can’t say for sure whether the superficial changes I have observed in my students over time are due to cultural differences or to the fact that kids in general are different from what they used to be.
But on the whole, I think they’re the same. Human nature never changes. Their needs remain the same: to be loved, to be valued and respected for who they are; to feel that they have a place in the world; to acquire the skills and knowledge that will enable them to fulfil that place successfully. There are, as I said, superficial differences: they can’t do cursive (unless they’ve been at school in Quebec); they have more trouble committing things to memory, and their attention spans are shorter; they accidentally or deliberately plagiarize a great deal more than they used to, because the way they work now – with their essay draft and all their sources simultaneously open in a dozen windows – makes plagiarism just so darn easy. They are, of course, much more competent in the uses of technology than I was, or even my own children were, at their age – but teen anxiety about how to balance fitting in and being authentically themselves, and the quest for validation, are not new to the “digital native” generation. It just takes new forms these days.
I find they’re often surprisingly limited in their knowledge and application of technology. They can use Word or Pages, they can use a variety of presentation apps such as Powerpoint or Prezi; they can play games. But many of them don’t know how to use Photoshop or iMovie or Garageband even though these programs come with their laptops. Only a few of them seem intrinsically motivated to teach themselves anything more about technology than they need to know to conduct their daily lives. I’m surprised by how few of them even know how to make a gif. The ones who make the effort to become experts in the use of their MacBooks and all the apps it offers are the exceptions.
Years ago – I’m talking the early 1990s, when I first became a teacher and computers were beginning to be a fixture in primary classrooms – most of the work the students did on a computer involved coding of some sort – essentially, a new task not known to previous generations. Nowadays, most of their computer time is spent using digital technology to carry out tasks that used to be carried out using old-world technology: researching (we used to use libraries for this); reading (we used to use books for this); dissecting in biology (we used to use real dead rats for this); written communication (there’s no qualitative difference between an email or a letter, a blog or a handwritten journal).
Has my pedagogy changed? Not really, but the platforms through which I deliver it have changed. I kind of miss my old blackboard, the smooth black slate and the silky coloured chalk… But a well-crafted sentence remains a well-crafted sentence, and a verbose, illogical sentence still needs help whether it’s written in Word or with a pencil.
That was a bit of a ramble….