Allyson: EDIM 508 Unit 1 Summary Posting Media Minds: Students' Use of Media Today

EDIM 508 Unit 1 Summary Posting
Media Minds: Students Use of Media Today

Ive enjoyed reading your discussions this week. I hope that the readings have better opened your mind to the
use of digital media and technological resources in education. Id like to highlight some outstanding thoughts
from this weeks discussion.
Allyson- As an educator, it was a different mind set for me. All of my teachers were digital
immigrants so I learned differently than my students do. Change is difficult so to move to a different model, I
needed to be prepared for a lot of work and to really figure things out by trial and error. I have noticed extreme
gains with my students. They are engaged and eager to get to ELA, not something many 6th graders would have
said a few years ago.
Brendan- Marc Prensky raised a lot of provocative points in his article

about how the responsibility may be on the teachers to change their style in order to
work with the students of today. It is just a simple fact that not all information is
processed in the same way. Therefore, we as educators need to be constantly
updating how our students learn.
Brett- Prensky portrays learners today as Natives in the digital world while the instructors are
immigrants to this world. It is from that perspective as an immigrant that I have always denied my
students the ability to listen to music while they work. Perhaps, in light of both of these two readings that is a
mistake.
Brian As educators we need to look at the brain based research and use it within the classroom. We
need to breakdown the old walls where what we do in the class is standard and sometimes hidden and
replace them with openness and creative new ways that engage both students and stakeholders and really allow
learning to be growing process use todays tools and not just sit back and let our students think education does
not advance to meet todays technology savvy student.
Carla- If media consumption is at saturation we have special challenges as educators when using
media in the classroom. On the other hand, the natives' ability to think differently about processing information
offers educators an opportunity to change the paradigm of how learning is delivered and reach this generation of
learners on a deeper level than was possible in the past.
Cayce- It really hit me in the Prensky article when they mentioned that the students' brains are
developmentally different than ours, and I truly believe that. Being in the kind of world where information is
only a click away is amazing. It's hard for me to tell my students that they need to memorize all the elements in
the periodic table when I know they can look it up so easily it seems almost pointless.
Christine- My hope is that our educational system will eventually change to accommodate the
advancements that have been made in technology, in an effort to make technology a required aspect of every
classroom, but until that happens, it is very hard to implement in just my classroom. The biggest opponents to
including technology in the classroom have been both the "old school" teachers and the parents, who often lack
the training to navigate these resources.
Jennifer- I think that it's imperative for all teachers, whether

digital natives or digital immigrants, to approach teaching with a new lens. We
will never be able to fully reach our students without meeting them where they
are. They are fluent members of the digital world, and because of this have
developed a much different skill set than we are used to utilizing in a traditional
school setting. We must find ways to enhance these skills in order to develop
21st century learners who are prepared to take on the many challenges of an
unknown, but surely digital future.
Julie- I see a lot of teachers using technology as a passive learning station. Technology is a tool
just as a pencil and eraser are tools. I don't mean to imply that the teachers have poor intentions but rather
they aren't sure how to best use this tool in the classroom. One of the places I start with them is to encourage
them to not call a station or rotation "Computers." We wouldn't name a station "Pencils."
Keely- Todays classrooms are so tailored to standardized testing and common core that we are
forgetting what interests and motivates our students to learn in the first place. We need to flip our classrooms so
that they are student centered and we need to modernize our teaching practices to connect with our students.
We need to power up not power down if we want our students to be successful in the world outside of
the classroom.
Keith- Each person has contrasting experiences that different pathways are made, thus the reason
why sometimes we look at someone and think to ourselves..."Why did you make a decision like that!" Their
decision was based on past experiences that created the connections in their brain which they used to process
the information and come up with a solution. Now we compound this different life experiences with the
overwhelming influx of digital information and the process and connections within the brain of today's youth
are even more different than our own, even with a similar upbringing.
Kelly- If technology is being used as "something else" or simply as "edutainment," we are missing a
tremendous opportunity to engage students in a meaningful way, incorporating opportunities for them to
develop the skills needed for them to be successful today and moving forward. As educators, we cannot embrace
a device. In fact, the technology we are all using, our students included, is the least sophisticated device that
any of us will ever use again. It is changing daily. Instead, we must resign ourselves to shift our practice so that
it uses the evolving technology in a way that bridges the 4C's of critical thinking, collaboration,
communication, and creativity, with the 5th C, the one that is the foundation of our grade levels and subject
areas - content.
Kevin- I think that a lot of the new methodologies or strategies being

put forth by "education experts" today focuses on engaging the students,
primarily through some type of entertainment. Even though entertainment
should not be our main purpose, I definitely find students are more interested in
videos created by me featuring lame jokes or references to things we've
discussed in class over a video posted on Khan Academy, primarily because
they are more entertained by my video (their own words, even!). Thus, I do
think part of our job has to be balancing their desire to be entertained with our
desire to instruct.
Kristin M.- If I want the children I am teaching now to read, they may not want to read a book
(oddly enough, I am such an immigrant with this as I have to hold a book in my hand, I even print out our
readings online for this course). We must change our way of exposing students to literature. Maybe students
would respond better to listening to stories on play-a-ways or CDs. Students can also connect to various apps
and websites to search literature that they would like to read. As Marc Prensky explains in his article, teachers
must change, as our students brains have physically changed!!
Kristin P. Part of the battle is coming up with ideas for technology, and as someone that uses it all
the time, this is much easier. For someone that does not rely on technology as much, they have a much smaller
repertoire of devices and activities to choose from. It is definitely more challenging, but at the same time, I
believe it is worth it. Using technology is how students learn, and if you choose to integrate it into your
classroom, you will reach more students and keep their attention.
Matthew Teachers have to learn to adapt to the needs of todays growing youth. They need to learn
the terminology that is generated from technology. The teachers need to be willing to speak in the same
language that is used with todays growing world of technology. Telling a Digital Immigrant to change their
way of teaching is very difficult. You cant expect them to do it right away. These teachers may need more
support because they arent comfortable with using it.
Megan I think we need to completely rethink attempts to ban phones in schools. They are too
valuable as a learning tool, and too pervasive, to try to keep them out of schools. Instead, schools should
rethink existing policies, redefine what a learning environment looks like in the 21st century, and work with
parents and staff members to create guidelines for usage that would allow for consistency in general policies
and address most of the common concerns that arise in conjunction with the introduction of technology in the
classroom.
Michael I already notice that digital natives have a black box mentality, meaning that they have
little understanding of what does on inside their cell phone (or toaster or fridge or furnace or car). While being
able to build one of these devices is great, it does not encourage deeper understanding into why they work. That
sounds more like developing young minds into builders instead of tinkerers and makers who have the
background knowledge to apply to novel situations.
Rachel How we learned is not how the students learned and this can be difficult
for a teacher to adjust their lessons to how students learn. If an immigrant cannot figure
out how a native learns, then they might lose that native. Prensky was pretty much saying
that it is important to know your audience. If you know your audience, you have a better
chance at reaching them. This means that, as educators, it is our responsibility to develop
lessons that appeal to and are relevant to the students.
Shannon We definitely have to embrace the generation of devices, but it is hard when we are being
held back with standardized tests or restricted device use on tests for college entry etc. I definitely think all of
education needs a technology overhaul, but I'm not sure how that can collectively happen. I wish we could wake
up one day and all have inspiring ideas of how to teach all of our content with th 4 c's. It's hard concept to
grasp to collectively change education.
Thomas But as I have found out, and like you were thinking, the higher-energy the environment is,
the better product I typically see in my students. I let my kids work a lot in groups, giving them time to talk a
little while they work, and when they get too off track I gently redirect the topic of conversation. While to an
outside observer this might look like a loud classroom, I have students translate better and develop better
answers during these exercises. It requires more out of me because I need to be constantly tuning into
conversations as I walk around the room, but I am quite happy with the results.

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EDIM 508 Unit 1 Summary Posting

Media Minds: Students Use of Media Today

Brendan- Marc Prensky raised a lot of provocative points in his article

Jennifer- I think that it's imperative for all teachers, whether

Kevin- I think that a lot of the new methodologies or strategies being

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