 Santa Cruz, March 18, 2007
Santa Cruz is a beach town on the central coast of California on the north side of the Monterey bay. We have a lot of students that come here from out of the country. Language is often a problem and their culture is very different from our own. In order to reach those students we need to work differently in our classrooms. Performance for these students can be much lower than other students as a result of these different needs for instruction.
Now it turns out that we have another population of immigrants in our classrooms. They often are the teachers in the classes we offer to the Digital Natives that come to our schools. Digital Natives are students younger than 20 who think that everyone uses Instant Messaging or has a place on MySpace where they can hang with their friends. Life without an mp3 player or iPod is hard to imagine. These kids are a pro at doing more than one thing at a time and can easily pause what they are doing to receive a message on their computer or cell phone and then get back to work. These kids can't imagine life without Tivo ( I can't either) yet some of their immigrant teachers have no idea what any of this is. What is a blog? How about a WebQuest or Hotlist? Why is it important for these kids to connect while they work? Do they share ideas and work together using technology. YES.
The classroom of today must move away from the classroom of the Digital Immigrant into the world of the Digital Native if performance is going to improve. Digital Natives just like our students from out of the country have different needs and technology is perhaps the most cost effective tool for reaching those needs. Things like a WebQuest or publishing a paper on the web as a Blog for comments from viewers all over the world are highly motivational.
Keith Wills Design is here to help your school or district work with Digital Native student populations using their native language of technology to increase student performance. Do kids need to "power down" to come to your school? Funding for technology is limited so focus must be made on the best way to reach the Digital Native. Give me a call, I would love to help you.
Read more about Digital Natives >> this is an article presented to Santa Cruz City Schools administrators in 2005. The information in it is even more relevant today and has much to say to any school district that has not addressed technology in a major way. |
