Marc Prensky, author of "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" also wrote an article titled: "Engage Me or Enrage Me: What Today's Learners Demand" Technology is very engaging for us and for our students. Just a caveat... Mr. Prensky is very much an advocate for educational video games - his company is Games2train. However, what he has to say about today's kids and their need for engagement is right on! Are we adults any different? Have you been to any staff development in the last few years where you felt "disengaged"? How did that make you feel? What are your thoughts about this article? Please comment...
Read through these virtues and challenges of video when considering whether or not to have students create video products to demonstrate their learning...
Between tonight's class and the next class on April 2nd, work on your projects. In addition, if you are taking this class for credit, review the lesson plan rubric and write (rewrite) your lesson plan. On April 2nd, please plan to share your projects and/or lessons with the class.
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9 comments:
Mr. Prensky was correct about one thing, students enjoy having stimulations to both their auditory and visual senses. Many of these kids were brought up in the Sesame Street tv, new excitements every thirty seconds and continual rapid fire inputs.
What Prensky has wrong is the idea that students are engaged with this input! To me, giving learners all of this meaningless noise does not engage students, it simply impulses the neurons as such a fast pace the pupil receives a psycho sexual satisfaction.
When Mr. Prensky hires a gamer, does he hire everyone who walks in the door and dumb down his requirements ot reach everyone. I doubt it. He hires the best he can get for his money and lets everyone else go on.
In education, we help everyone who walks in the door. As teachers, we are enraged by students who simply try everyway not to be engaged.
MadScientist1979 - I agree - meaningless input might be engaging but is it educational? Does it help them learn or just keep them from being bored? So, as educators, we need to engage kids with learning environments that are not only stimulating, but that help them learn and make sense of what they've learned.
I certainly agree with Mr. Prensky's definition of the 3 kinds of students. And I think he is right about the fact that we need to try harder to engage students. What I'm having trouble with is his assertion that everything needs to be a game! Stimulating discussion can also be engaging- and I'm talking about the exchange of ideas here, not the connection between how fast your fingers move and your keypad. Lots of think about.
It is good to see and extreme version of the digital education argument.
There is more to engagement with technology than the bells and whistles that video games provide.
He hit the nail on the head with the fact that is the substance of the game that makes it interesting.
Just as it's the substance of the curriculum and it's delivery. Technology can certainly aide, but it has to have the substance as well.
Prensky's article gave me food for thought. I'm wondering what the typical classroom will look-feel-sound like ten years from now.
I think back to my videogame experiences over the years, and the common threads were that you learned more about the game as you played, and that you eventually reached a limit determined by your hand-eye coordination and/or endurance. Are the games like that today?
We don't have 350 million pounds to spend on a "digital curriculum" but I believe I can introduce some technology into my classroom and engage a different set of students.
I had a son like this in high school 7 years ago. When you think of everything that is out there now, I am glad that he is out of college and has an engaging job. I as a teacher did not keep up with the new tecnology and now I feel like I will probably never catch up.
The wonderful thing, or curse, of technology is it is changing...
You can't catch up, but when you want to get in the game it is always possible.
It get's more user friendly every day and all you have to do is step off the curb and get going.
Please, everyone...read and respond.
Technology is changing all the time. It is difficult to stay on top of new learning, but we need to make an effort to keep learning and not use old material. Not all students learn in the same manner so we need to learn to teach differently.
I don't have a problem with using technology to increase the effectiveness of education. What I have a problem with is that students must be entertained in order for them to be engaged. What has happened to using their imagination? Games and toys have done all the imagination for them already. I have to laugh and then cringe when one of my grandchildren get a toy and ask what does it do? Kids have lost sight of taking an inanimate object and use their imagination to make their own entertainment.
Don't take me wrong, technology is great! It definitely stimulates the brain. I would just like to see students use a little more of their own interior technology.
I agree with mad scientist about the student, no matter what, who will not engage. He has his mind set before he walks into the classroom. Give him a video game and you can not get his attention.
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