Students have already made the transition to the new paradigm and
they are the NET generation. To see the issues with teaching the NET
generation read this excellent downloadable
PDF book from Educause.
The
fact that they have made the transition and we, as teachers have not,
may explain the disengagement which seems to be increasingly rife
in our schools today.
'Schools
are irrelevant in a world of digital media'
By
Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 09 November 2005
Schools are becoming
increasingly irrelevant to the modern child as a result of their failure
to embrace the digital media, a leading expert on youth culture will
warn in a lecture tonight.
Outside school,
children are said to be engaged in a constant whirl of chatting in chat-rooms
and exchanging instant messages with friends. They play computer games
- often with people on the other side of the world, download pop and
movies. Yet, in many schools, they are taught little more than the rudiments
of information retrieval.
''Compared with
the complex multi-media experiences some children have outside school,
much classroom work is bound to appear unexciting,'' Professor David
Buckingham, head of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and
Media at London University's Institute of Education will say.
Part of the reason
for this is their teachers' reluctance to develop the use of new technology
in lessons because of inadequate training. ''Given the limited nature
of most training, teachers themselves may have good reason to feel incompetent
- or at least lacking in confidence - when it comes to integrating technology
in the classroom,'' he will argue.
Ministers say they
have invested £1.67bn in computer technology in schools.
Schools are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the modern child as
a result of their failure to embrace the digital media, a leading expert
on youth culture will warn in a lecture tonight.
Outside school,
children are said to be engaged in a constant whirl of chatting in chat-rooms
and exchanging instant messages with friends. They play computer games
- often with people on the other side of the world, download pop and
movies. Yet, in many schools, they are taught little more than the rudiments
of information retrieval.
''Compared with
the complex multi-media experiences some children have outside school,
much classroom work is bound to appear unexciting,'' Professor David
Buckingham, head of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and
Media at London University's Institute of Education will say.
Part of the reason
for this is their teachers' reluctance to develop the use of new technology
in lessons because of inadequate training. ''Given the limited nature
of most training, teachers themselves may have good reason to feel incompetent
- or at least lacking in confidence - when it comes to integrating technology
in the classroom,'' he will argue.
