This session featured Ian Jukes and Lee Crocket in a "drive by conversation" on Teaching the Digital Generation.The presentation material can be found here if you sign up.
He asked us to step back from our exsisting world and get a "swift kick in our assumptions."
The powerful new technologies are affecting todays students. Most of the change that our parents and grandparents experienced were incremental. Anyone under the age of 25 the changes are more rapid and
Understanding the Digital Generation book
Highlights:
As parents, citizens and educators need to understand that on the inside today's kids are completely different. Not because of them physically maturing faster, their clothing styles, or what they listen to. Due to digital bombardment, primarily outside of school, their brains are adapting to these new technologies. They have developed a cultural brain.
Because of this bombard ment their brains are physically changing. They are neurologically different, and they see and interact with "hyperlinked minds" with "neuroplasticity."
They are constantly creating new thinking patterns. The eyes of digital readers process images 60,000 times faster than text.
The eyes of older brains find the "golden mean" 1/3 to the left and 1/3 down. A z curve.
Kent State research shows digital readers don't do that. They unconciously scan the bottom and sides first.
The brighter the color on the page the more they focus on the page. They read in an F pattern. They ignore the right side and bottom of the page, unless they are highly motivated to explore it.
This affects the way they view the world.
Digital learners prefer receiving info quickly from multiple media sources.
Educators prefer slow controled content from a single source.
Kids come to school and feel like they've run into a wall. We need to acknowledge as educators that the digital world is different.
National School Board Association says that by ignoring this and the tools that students use outside of school w/o first concidering the educational possibilities we are "blowing it!"
The world has changed and we need to get over it and get on with preparing them for it!
Digital learners prefer parallel processing and multitasking, most educators prefer linear processing and focus on a single task.
Continuous partial attention, multi-tasking, has been around for ever. The difference is that for the digital generation, they multi-task much faster. That's not the way WE grew up!
Dr. John Medina, author of "Brain Rules"-Research on multi-tasking, students are 40% less effective when mult-tasking. Students need to focus for extended periods of time. However, whether we like it or not, we're never going back to 1985 again.
Jukes says that unfortunately, many teachers still teach like it IS 1985!
Educators prefer text before pictures/sound/video. Kids want the opposite.
Back when we were growing up, the images were meant to compliment the text. For digital learners, they want to experience the images first, then
People can remember the content of 2500 images 72 hours after only 10 seconds exposure with 90% accuracy! If this is the case, our stand and deliver lecture model is not cutting it.
Images and video are powerful enough on their own. Do you learn more from the video or the words on the evening news? Medina says the new generation is visually fluent. They are moving more to a digital right brain world.
We were paper trained, linear logical, left to right. The new generation prefers beginning w/ visuals and then moving
Digital learners prefer random access to hyper-linked multimedia information. Many educators prefer the linear delivery method.
The constant exposure students have had has created "hyper-linked minds."
Moving from linear to multiple paths of thought is a good thing, but exposure to this makes it hard for learners to follow linear thought, because they get bored.
Kids are increasingly non-linear thinkers. Why do I have to read to the end if I can explore the links and create my own ending?!
Jukes says that both styles are ok, just different.
Digital learners prefer to network and collaborate with others. Educators prefer students to work independently before interacting.
When we were growing up there were 2 ways to communicate Face to face, and phone.
The digital world has 1000's of ways to communicate. The digital generation takes these for granted. It does not exist in isolation from the physical world. Our generation struggles to understand this!
What is the 1st thing kids do when given a new game? Pull out the instructions? NO. They mess with it. They look for cheats, they ask their friends, etc. This is fundamentally different learning.
Learning by intuition,
Digital learners prefer "just in time"
Many educators prefer "just in case!"
The idea of having a career for life is highly unusual now. Companies: If you wanted loyalty, you should have bought a dog!
Kids today will be dealing with 10-17 careers. The top 10 jobs in 2020 do not exist today. (Friedman) If we are going to prepare our kids for the world they will meet, we need to teach differently.
"No child left untested" is
What world are we preparing our kids for?
Digital learners prefer instant gratification and instant rewards. Educators prefer deferred gratification and delayed rewards.
Video developers make new games planning a new decision every 5-10 seconds and a reward every 7 seconds. On average, students get asked a question or get feedback every 25 minutes in school.
Time to reflect: Kids are different and we need to acknowledge that.
So now we know. How do we change things?
These 6 things should be in the front of ever room:
Solution Fluency:
Define, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, Debrief
In the real world, it's not enough to design the presentation, you need to deliver it, and then debrief! Students need to be involved in the process.
The deliver phase
Information Fluency-Every minute, 24 hours of Youtube videos are uploaded. Every minute you are a day behind. Is it more important to know or to manage the information
The 5 A's:
Students need to be able to ask, aquire (wrong info is an opportunity for learning!), analyze, apply, assess
This should be embeded in every lesson and skill.
Creativity Fluency-
$200 to get into the lobby of a Dubai hotel
Design is the key in the marketplace.
2/3 of our economy will be creative class jobs
Logical and analytical abilities can no longer guarantee success-Olivier
Media Fluency
Determine/evaluate the media
Determine the best way to communicate your message
Challenge students to communicate more effectively, not just about language!
Collaboration Fluency
Digital Diet book written by Ian, Lee and Andrew Churches all done online
All of these fluencies are done in context as a digital citizen.
Traditional Literacies 21st Century Fluencies should be balanced
Teach problems then content.
The focus is on "headware" not "hardware!"
It's not that kids are ADD or ADHD, outside the US there are very few diagnosis this way!
We don't understand that the digital generation is different, and schools are NOT designed for them!
There is not a greater "anti-brain" environment than today's school.
Jukes says there IS a place for basic skills and understandings, but traditional literacy is NOT enough!
There needs to be balance between their world and our world!
Every generation has said, "What the hell is wrong with these kids?"
This was my first time watching Jukes present. It was a fast talking, information filled talk, that had many implications for educators.
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