Reflection on "A Vision of K-12 Students Today - Video "

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=12272

Reflection on "A Vision of K-12 Students Today”

The goal of the video was to provide the statistics to support the idea that our students are 21^st Century Learners or Digital Natives. Because of this, they are wired differently than the students of the past and the traditional teaching methods are no longer effective. Words like “create,” “consume,” “consume,” “remix,” and “share” are held up on whiteboards. Statistics were given about how many teachers have never used wikis, blogs, or podcasts. Other statistics about China vs. the US were given. Then more words or phrases like: “think,” “create,” “analyze,” “evaluate,” and “engage me” were given. At one point students held up whiteboards stating that they should be allowed to use technology “whenever, wherever, and whatever.”

My initial reaction to this video was negative. In general, I don’t like videos with sad music in the background that provide a strong option with little support. To be clear, I think it is important to incorporate technology in the classroom. Not only do our students respond well to technology, their future employers will expect them to be good with technology. Even though my reflection of this video will seem mostly negative, I support the general idea of the video. The message I got from the video is: Because our students have grown up submerged in technology, teachers need to teach differently. My argument is that good teachers have been and will continue to engage their students. Technology can be another tool they use, but they are already asking their students to think, create, analyze, evaluate, and apply their learning. Students have always responded well to this way of teaching and will continue to respond well. I don’t think we should teach this way only to the “Digital Learners,” we should teach this way to all learners.

I recognize that because students have grown up in the digital age, they are different from the students of previous generations. Effective teachers know their students and work hard to meet them where they are and challenge them to reach beyond their current level and expand their abilities. If they have a hard time focusing on a single task because they are use to multi-tasking, that is understandable, but our response should be to help them with focusing on a single task, not always allowing and encouraging multi-tasking. A person who is capable of both multi-tasking and focusing on a single task is in a better position than a student who can only multi-task. This line of thinking applies to several other areas.

I also felt like the statistics about China were misleading. If I remember correctly, all the stats that said China is (or soon will be) the largest English speaking nation and they have more honor students than our entire population might only true because they are over-populated. They are not true because they are doing something that better or more effective than the United States. In fact, I have heard there is a lack of creative thinkers in China. I don’t think this part of the video was intending for people to conclude that we should strive to be like China. My guess is that this video was going more for the idea that our students are growing up with a globalized economy. China is the most populated country in the world and we need to prepare our students to work with other cultures and in a variety of environments. It is also good to help teachers and students realize that the workforce is becoming more competitive and since they are entering into a globalized economy, they need to be prepared to compete against people from other countries, like China.

Like I said at the start of this reflection, I agree with message of this video, for the most part. I don’t like the way the information was presented. Even though we came to the same conclusions about how we should be teaching our students, we took a different route to get to that conclusion. The only thing that I think I totally disagree with is the part where students held up whiteboards saying they should have access to technology, “whatever, whenever, and wherever.” I think nearly everyone would disagree with this statement if it is taken literally (which is how I am taking it since nothing else in the video qualified this statement). This brings out my biggest problem with this video. A video with no explanation, just sad music with sad students holding up words and short phrases on whiteboards, does not make a clear statement. It allows the viewers to read what they want into it and does little more than create an emotional response.