Mr Lara's Blog

Change vs Continuity in Students over Generations February 21, 2010

Steve Lara

Marc Prensky states in Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants “Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”  (pg. 1)  I agree that our educational system is not made to teach kids who are used to playing video games instead of reading books and who think non digital teaching methods are an old boring language to be resisted.  He explains that students today grew up using video technologies from birth and so learned modern technology such as texting and computers as a language from birth.  They learned digital technology early enough to make it a 1^st language, like kids born in the US learn English as a 1^st language and so he calls such kids “digital natives.”  Learning using the native language should be easier and preferable for kids because they were born into it. Our students today spend much more time playing with digital text technology than reading books.  (pg. 1)  When I look at the compare and contrast Venn diagram from class, I think students from 30 years ago still faced the same social situations compared to modern students but technology has made communication easier and increased exposure to and dependence on faster communication and video stimulation technology.  This is similar to when I find radio too boring because of lack of video stimulation.

I would agree with the author that most of our teachers were not born in a world full of digital technology other than TV and so had to learn much technology as a second language.  This means that most teachers are “digital immigrants”, less comfortable with computers and technology in general than the students and so are less able to connect with and teach today’s kids because of the technology language barrier. (pg. 2)  Our educational system today is designed to teach in the old way of having students read books because that is what worked in the past.  Video was used in the past but was not the main teaching method, and I have personally known some teachers that don’t take their class to the computer lab or teach using computers because they do not think computers can help their kids pass the standardized state tests their jobs depend on.

I believe that students today have been influenced so heavily by texting, video games, and the internet that their willingness to learn by reading books or listen to lectures has greatly diminished compared to when I was in school.  Their demand for stimulation from video especially interactive video as in games has greatly increased although I remember greatly preferring watching movies to lectures when I was a student.  I think too much lecturing is why our students are generally performing poorly in school.  Kids I talk to today generally tell me that school is boring because they just listen to the teacher talking or practice doing endless multiplication problems without meaning.

I agree with the author when he says “Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.”  (pg. 1)  I think student brains today are more “wired” to learn by interacting with video due to years of playing video games, more so than in the past.  By wired I mean that student brains physically change to more easily learn from video interaction because the part of the brain used to learn from video interaction grows stronger from more frequent use.  Thus the student ability to learn from video improves compared to students from the past that played less video games.  (Digital Natives part 2, pg. 1)

This means modern students do learn differently than in the past and so we should change our teaching style to match the preference of our students to maximize their learning.  Research has shown that brains do physically change in growing animals and humans depending on what part of their brains are used most.  (Digital Natives part 2, pg. 1)  Musician’s brains have been shown to have a slightly different shape compared to those of non musicians.  The brains of rats that grew up in “enriched” environments had thicker sensory areas compared to those of rats who grew up in “impoverished” environments.  I think modern student brains are more adapted to be stronger in learning using interactive video compare to when I was in school.  Of course students back then preferred to play video games to reading books, I sure did, but most of us had less opportunity to do so than today’s kids so our brains developed differently with more strength in non video learning that modern kids lack.

I think like the author that kids can improve learning by using computer games if the games are properly designed to be interesting while requiring students to learn educational content to win the game.  (Digital Natives part 2, pg. 5)  Research has shown that computer games can improve academic scores.  Games created by The Lightspan Partnership improved scores in language arts and one from Click Health improved diabetes self care and reduced doctor visits from diabetes problems.  (Digital Natives part 2, pg. 6)  The US military has trusted video game training for over a decade and insists that such training technology works.  I believe the success of our military is improved strongly by training with video games and well designed educational games can improve our educational system as well.