Q & A
After several videoconference connections this past semester with pre-service teachers at St. John Fisher College, I finally met them face-to-face for an open Q&A session. Thoughtful questions regarding differentiated instruction, poverty, and technology integration were posed by the students and hopefully I was able to provide a bit of insight and prompt them to think in a different way.
I keep hearing people say, “Kids today know how to use technology.” So given the fact that the majority of these students were <21, I turned the table and asked them a few questions. Here’s a brief sample:
- How do you search for information? Answer: Google
- Who do you learn from? Answer: Classmates & professors
- When does most of your learning take place? Answer: During class
- Have you heard of Web 2.0? Answer: No
Technology can transform teaching and learning, but how do we make that happen? Will the classrooms of these future teachers look any different from a classroom today? Does anything concern you about these responses?
on December 4th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Some of our beliefs about the technological “savvy” of young people may be based on faulty information. Have you read this analysis?
http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html
JS
on December 4th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Thanks for sharing the article. Here’s another one worth reading.
http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/archives/2007/10/entry_3749.htm
Classrooms will not change if teachers do not start using these tools for their own personal learning and also with their students. How does this happen if teachers (pre-service or in-service) are unaware of what’s out there, reluctant to invest the time, or disinterested in change?
on December 6th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I am also wondering if you asked the same questions to college students from other countries if their answers would be the same or different. It would be interesting to find out!