Issues in Educational Technology

Article: Why Digital Natives Need Help With Technology (by Anthony Rebora)

I would give the summary of the article by an excerpt from what Passani and Peters stated, “Just because these students are digital natives, does not mean that they do not need guidance to navigate the digital world—both in terms of learning how to discern important and relevant information from a large swath of data, and also to be able to inquire and solve problems that take time, thought, and energy.”

Points to ponder:

Dancing with Digital Natives: How to reach digital natives?

What strategies can we use to sustain the needs of our students-the digital natives?

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants – who uses technology best?

 

Are we ready for 21^st century learning?

My husband and I were talking of how great it is to be studying at this time.  Information are just at the tip of our finger.  Are we information and media literate?  Do we know how to evaluate the information that we need? Do we know where to find those information? Do we know how to use it effectively? (Source: American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, Final Report.)

In the faq of Center for Media literacy, media literacy is said to be a set of skills that can be learned through other subject/content areas.  Which can be introduced by answering the questions above.

As teachers, I believe we should follow an explicit instruction in information and media literacy. To better lead our students to the point that we trying to drive at, I find www.centermil.org helpful.  The link contains sample guide for media literacy in the Junior Grades.

As I was reading the ISTE Standards, it is really a challenge for the teacher.  Teachers nowadays is not the only source of information.  Teachers are there to supervise and facilitate the learning.  Teachers must be abreast with the current trends in technology.  Teachers must give meaning and challenging work for students to improve their information and media literacy skills.

Since I am teaching computer subject.  It is always my goal to teach them how to become information and media literate.  They need to learn how to evaluate the information that they need They need to learn where to find information. They need to know how to use information and media effectively. How? With the various classroom activities, from homework and making projects.  From sending emails, evaluating web sites/emails received, proper way of searching, applying what they have learned to other subjects (cross curriculum). 

Information and media literacy are the key abilities that we need for the 21^st century learning.   The question is, are we ready?

To summarize, I want to quote AMA Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (1989), “Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand.”