An article in The Australian, Education revolution worries teachers makes for interesting reading. Read it for yourself, but the statistic claiming only 27% of teachers – ‘…believed the internet was transforming the way they engaged their students…’ would be of fundamental concern. I would like to see the survey to understand exactly what was asked. And Greg Black’s comment, “…we’ve got a generation of kids who are saying that they actually have to power down when they go to school,” is the one that should concern us all.
Thoughts?
Heck, I feel like I have to ‘power down’ when I come to school!!
I can’t wait until my class has laptops! Learning will become a two way street and 30 young people will be giving me all the TPL I need!
I am hoping that more and more teachers are feeling like this, Jenni. If only TPL was our only challenge; seems like time is standing still as we waaaaittt for anything to happen.
Yeah I agree about the time standing still – and I also understand where the kids are coming from with their powering down comment. Essentially, we have digital natives who NEVER do one thing at a time on their home computers and we force them into a mono zone where they stumble through school and only awaken from their somnambulant state when they get back in front of their computers at home and can talk online in text to several people, while operating a live voice conversation (skype or phone), maybe webcam, text their friends on the phone, update their MySpace site, surf the web and listen to music while they research the stuff they need for their assignment.
Somnabulant…yes, that’s about right and unfortunately, an apt description of quite a few things happening in education at the moment. Be determined not to be somnambulists folks!
As principal of a large comprehensiveand as a parent I can not stand the idea that public provision is slipping behind. This is happening as we speak.
It is urgent that State/Commonwealth shermozz is solved and that we can move forward with confidence.
Providing all teachers with a lap top now would be the best strategic response.