How Vs Why [Tech in the Classroom] by @YouthConnected_

I’ve worked in a whole bunch schools and education facilities and something has changed, but this change is not exclusive to the school environment it occurs in all walks of life. This change; the digital natives…they grew up. 

This is a re-blog post originally posted by Adam Watts and published with kind permission.

The original post can be found here.

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Yep, the digital natives are here; about to leave school (believe it or not they’re all relatively ok. No more ok or less ok than say…you or I). Sure – handwriting has taken a hit; a travesty you may say; but asked to jot down a note or two with a quill & ink, and I’m sure even the pen wielding warriors out there would struggle…and there’s no difference. “But what about all tht txt spk” I hear you sob – well I will go into how traditional spelling is entirely inadequate when writing in the context of instant communication in another blog post – but for right now..cba tbh.

Here’s the real issue, and I really do believe it’s an issue. The people doing the educating – well…they’re not ‘digital natives’. They have a deep, entrenched, subconscious belief that tech will rue the day. It will. But the odd thing here is thedigital natives don’t care…the rest of us do.

It is this fear of tech that perpetuates its very usage; a teacher awkwardly using their iPad to perform presentations – I’ve even watched a teacher get their iPad out of their bag…have to find a plug socket…start it up…scroll through apps…find the ‘note-taking’ app…design a new ‘note pad cover’…then open it up and write a list of 5 words…gosh it laborious just writing about it.

It goes for all of society that we should ask WHY should we use tech…and not HOW can I use tech…this is especially true in education.

Does the tech fit into your life; or does your life fit around the tech? Intresting eh.
People can be so wrapped up in HOW can I use my latest gadget; that theWHY is altogether forgotten. Unproductive to say the least; and those digital natives…
…yeah; there the ones looking bored out of their skulls and finding you entirely uninteresting…because as much as you may think its cool that you can sync your iPad to a white board…they could not care less.

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