Connect 2.0

We had another excellent discussion at our Parent Technology Coffee Morning this week. This time around we watched two videos about the way students learn today, which is drastically different than the ways we learned when we were in school.

The fist video, A Vision of Students Today, was produced by a Micheal Wesch, a university professor in the US, with his Digital Ethnography class.

Although this video directly addresses university students, many of the points raised were equally relevant to our younger learners.

This video was also the inspiration for the second video we watched, A Vision of K-12 Students Today, which specifically addresses the needs of primary and secondary school students.

Both videos helped prompt a discussion about new and exciting ways to engage our 21st century learners here at ISB.

We talked about:

• How quickly students are able to learn and work with these new tools. Although it may take longer for adults to use them (for example to take notes and highlight and add graphics), it’s very often the quickest and easiest way for our students to accomplish their tasks. Providing methods for students to use these tools within the classroom environment is critical to their engagement in their learning.
• Along with embracing new tools, it is equally critical to remember that we need to achieve balance. Running and playing with other children (in the real world) is an important part of socialization and relationship-building. It is becoming a bigger task for parents to ensure that their children enjoy a successful balance between both worlds.
• Although it is important for students to have basic knowledge, it is in the application of this knowledge to actually create something new that students can truly express their understanding. It is important for schools to provide multiple formats for the application of knowledge (some including technology, and some emphasizing other aspects of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intellegences) in order to provide balance, and to reach and engage all learners.

As usual, we had a lively discussion and we hope you will join us next time! Our next session is:

Wednesday, December 3rd: Information R/evolution: This session will be an introduction to the different ways that information is shared, stored, managed and found in our web 2.0 world. We will also offer a brief overview of the new library catalog, Destiny.

Did you know you can download any videos you find online from KeepVid? All you need is the website address (URL) for the video you would like to download, and this website create a web link you can right-click on to download the video!