Chapter 2, Students and Learning

I chose this chapter because I feel so strongly that there are such major differences between the way my generation teaches and the way this generation of students learn and live. The internet is their primary social arena now as well as the place they go to do homework and absolutely the first place they go for information. I was interested to read that the fastest growing group to be online is preschool children. This means that these kids are going to be even more wired than high school kids are today.

Technology can no longer be an extra in schools, used to add a bit of pizazz to a lesson. It must become a tool like calculators and pencils have been for years. Students want to use technology to learn as well as socialize. The author states that students want adults to move beyond using the "Internet for Internet's sake." That is when the excitement can start. With all the tools available online, there is no end to the possibilities.

One of the first things schools need to do is equip every student with a laptop that they use in each class and take home. This would eliminate all the problems we have today with imcompatibility of programs between versions on home computers and those on the school computers. It would level the playing field for all students, and it would encourage the use of computers for communication between teachers and students. I think we need to start communicating via social networks and texting because this is the favored communication of this generation.

I loved the two Bloom's taxonomy charts showing the traditional next to the one revised for the influence of technology. Technology encourages a higher order of thinking that goes beyond evaluation into the realm of creating. We don't need to trash the old educational tools but combine them with technology to reach a more powerful level of learning. Technology also makes it easier for students to find and use the learning style of their preference. We, as educators, can more reliably meet the needs of each student and push them to meaningful learning.

I like the idea of learning as a continual process, leading to a variety of different careers or fields as we age. We no longer need to view education as a preparation for one job for our entire life, but know we can continuously learn and change our knowledge and do it in an informal, personal way rather than the formal education that we faced exclusively in past decades. It is all really exciting.