Digitial Immigrants- Journal 2

The Digital Generation Gap presents the perfect opportunity to revisit a system that has not been working properly for a while. It appears that in that last few years or so there have become a great deal of students, in most cases boys, who have been labeled with learning disabilities. While I don't doubt that the students may be experiencing some difficulties learning in a traditional setting, I'm inclined to wonder if maybe the teaching style could be the disconnect in the challenge to reach those labeled students. Even the students in the regular education settings are struggling to stay focused on the lessons presented while sitting in the same chair for large chunks of time. Today's student need movement and interaction.

As educators we have to find avenues to engage all our students most of the time. As the article stated that is quite the challenge when most of our students are plugged in almost every waking hour they are not in school. Many will listen to music or the television while they sleep which in essence keeps them continuously plugged in. I work in the middle school setting and I watch many of the students come in the building in the morning with ear buds in their ears, they know they are not allowed to have them in school but they hold on to every bit of the "electronic connection" until the absolute last possible moment. Before I worked in this setting I would have said, "oh no you're turning that thing off right now or I am confiscating it." But as I have become more knowledgeable about these digital natives I take a softer approach. I allow them to get to their locker first where they have the opportunity to put them away at their own pace and if they don't they will have to deal with the wrath of their first period teacher or the vice-principal who is the school's disciplinarian.

The bottom line for me is this, I want to teach and I want to learn, as an educator I never want to cash in my learning badge. I will never be at a point where I can't learn something new. The age of the teacher should not matter, just like parents learn from their children, teachers will learn from their students. Producing life-long learners is the goal for both parties, while I can impart the passion for learning the digital native can teach me a new method to get them to that learning.

I am very excited about the new ways to learn old things and examining if some of the information is even worth teaching. As the world progresses teachers will be moving away from the traditional teacher to student relationship to a facilitator to student relationship and in some cases a digital native instructor to a receptive digital immigrant "teacher-student". I believe this will give us an excellent repoire with our students. When they see we are still teachable and we don't come across as the final authority on every issue there will be no limits to what we can teach them.

Finally the digital classroom could be a very dynamic tool for all students traditional, itinerant, and learning support. When the class is set up with the teacher becoming more of a facilitator and the students are allowed to work at their own pace. Just like in the workplace people work to their ability and skill, the students could do the same and the teacher could have more time to work with struggling students without singling them out and the advanced students wouldn't be held back from going forward because of lagging students. Initially, parts of the school day could be set up this way and the traditional teaching style could be interspersed throughout the school day too. There are so many avenues to this topic, the main thing would be to have an open mind no matter the case because our ultimate goal is to get our gets to learn by any means necessary.