Rethinking 9

"For the first time in history , children are more comfortable, knowledgable and literate than their parents." Page 122

I would have agreed with this 2 months ago.  It might be true but I don't think it is a valid generalization.  Now that I have examined David Grabski's 7th and 8th grade classes, and have spent numerous sessions in computer labs with high school students, I see that students can't do as much as people think they can.  Some do, but most don't.  They primarily know how to text and play video games.  Do you know that a lot of students who regularly text can't send an e-mail?  Did you know that most students are not very good at choosing key words or phrases for information searches.  Most students have never used spread sheets like Excell or Access.  Most students don't know how to do a budget.  Most students (just like me) have not thought much about how the technology available to them can be used.  We teachers keep making these broad assumptions about how technologically literate and savvy kids are, and our understandings are skewed by a few good students who have learned a lot.  We still need to teach most students how to use the technology to advance their own interests.

"Pick up a controller and take Madden 2005 or Pokemon for a ride; let your children teach you how to play , and raise critical questions about strategies and the purpose of the game play."  Page123

I do this all of the time in high school computer lab.  I have yet to see a game where their is any real strategy that challenges my imagination.  I guess the one where students kill their teacher in a lot of different ways is fun.  But cutting off teachers head or stabbing him in the guts to watch cyber blood squirting all over the place doesn't inspire critical thinking does it?  I don't have Madden 2005 or Pokemon.  Therefore, I can't comment on these games.  I see from Wikipedia that there are more to them than there is to the games I normally see.  We can'y play these in schools over Internet connections.  I encourage students to do all sorts of other things.  A substitute can't get much response.  However, as a regular teacher, I bet I could get students to look at bettter ways to use technology.

On page 125 the authors ask, "How has technology changed kids' social lives and learning?"

But, then they don't really address this in their dialogue.  They do explain that by the 1960's millionss of teens primarily went to school to socialize with friends rather than to get an education.  Ok, fine.  But, that has nothing to do with technology.  It has more to do with a rapidly growing technology, I think.  Is the cart before the horse here?  Kids are more social than before because they go to school regularly.  They go to school regularly because their parents can afford for them to do that, and because the government says they must.  Technology did not make kids more social; technology created an economy that made kids go to school where they became more social.  That's what I think, anyway.