Educating the Dragon

I finally finished it, Don Tapscott’s Growing up Digital book. It cost my $5 in library fines but I finished it.

I use the word finally not to say I battled through the book and it was awful, quite the opposite, it was amazing. I say finally because I’m such a slow reader anyway and this term in school so busy I rarely had chance to pause and pick up the book let alone read it…. Less about me, more about the book.

It clarified several things for me and made raised a few questions too.

1.My Generation

I realised while I was reading this, that my generation “Baby-Bust” according to the book, is a light-weight generation, the fag end of the Boomers so to speak. The situation for me in the
UK when I left school has just been put into some sort of perspective by Don’s writing. There was a reason why jobs were scarce, why finding Saturday jobs was somewhat of a ‘mare even. The experience of my generation was shaped by neither the news cycle of the TV nor global networking. I sat in the in-between time where TV had turned banal and Compact Discs had only just come onto the seen. I relate to the Wedding Singer if anything.

2.Their Generation

Then it got me thinking about my current children, whether it is just the children in my class or those in my primary school. According to Tapscott the Net Generation began in 1980 and runs to 1997 or something, when the book was published. You could argue that the Net Gen continued to the current. Either way the impact of the Net Gen on current school age children could be similar to that of the Baby-Bust. Maybe the current cohort is not Net-Gen but Net-Bust. By the time my class reaches 18 and ready for ‘work’ the oldest Net-Gen will be 38 and filling the jobs, with experience as well as expertise in use of current Net-Tools. What will that mean for my class? They will have to adapt further, be quicker, smarter and even more determined than the Net-Gen. How is that going to impact on my teaching today, tomorrow, next week? I introduced my kids to the concept of a wiki. Check out my class wiki. It is basic, but it has them communicating, sharing and presenting their work online. I’ve begun to look at what ICT teaching looks like for the Primary (Elementary) level. All thoughts and ideas in the comments section below please.

I am looking forward to reading wikinomics and other books. Again suggestions below please. The impact this technology is having on the education of our young people is huge. I would hate for my class to be placed in the have-not category that Tapscott talks about. Does the responsibility for whether they are or not lie with the student, the parent or the teacher?

Miguel Guhlin invited me into a Skype call he was having this afternoon (night- his time) with a guy called Kevin. As I was brought up to date with what the conversation was about, it intrigued me: Kevin is heading up a not-for-profit organisation which seeks to promote the education of young people about the native wildlife of
New Zealand. As the conversation progressed we debated the value of ‘broadcast’ method of presentation against establishing a wiki/ blog inviting interest and collaboration from teachers and students. Although his target audience was year 12/13 I could still see the remarkable possibilities of such a project for my year 3’s. Currently there is a website associated with the project and I hope it will give something of a flavour despite them being somewhat out-of-date as Kevin claimed.

If you have a moment, take a look, but look out for the sound effects, have your volume turned up nice and loud.

Kevin also manages www.cmag.org.nz