Saturday, April 21, 2007

Pay Attention (Or Be Ignored...)

You may have heard of Web 2.0 (or here), and you may have even heard of School 2.0 (or here and here), but here's a thought-provoking 8-minute video of Student 2.0:



Creator Darren Draper is Technology Curriculum Specialist in the Jordan School District in Utah and in addition to this video being posted on TeacherTube (as embedded above), it is on YouTube, and on the Jordan School District's T4 (Transforming Teaching Through Technology) site with extensive supplemental material including source materials.

This is a compelling challenge to educators and educational institutions today. How are we relating educationally to today's and tomorrow's students? Most of us are digital immigrants compared to our students, and even the youngest educators among us have been schooled themselves with mostly traditional, non-digital methods. The inertial tendancy to maintain traditional approaches can be overwhelming even if we consciously and intentional want to change and fully understand the need to change. But every attempt we make to engage our digital students with and through the media they use so pervasively is a step in the right direction.

Thanks to Karl Fisch's Fischbowl as well as a post on the ADE listserv for directing me (and now you) to what Karl calls a "conversation starter" -- be sure to keep this conversation going...