Last week, I attended a one day conference with Marc Prensky where we discussed “Digital Wisdom.” Prensky defined digital wisdom as combining things our brains do well with what computers do better.
This ability, to be digitally wise, is available to everyone today who is willing to integrate technology into her or his life, including students. In fact, students may find themselves having digital wisdom more naturally than others because technology is the only context they have ever known. Students have not had to immigrate from a context of no or minimal technology into a technology-rich context. Instead, students today have been born into a world where technology is constantly available at their fingertips, no longer just a “click” away but literally a touch.
With that in mind, it seems reasonable to question how well we honor students’ experience, knowledge, and expertise with digital wisdom. Especially when students are constantly using technology for a range of tasks in school and in life. Prensky made a comment that any professional development day without kids in the room is a big mistake. Yet, most PD days are scheduled specifically so that students do not attend. Imagine what could happen if we focused not just on integrating technology into the classroom but also students’ perspectives and ideas about technology.
I’m inspired by the idea of trying to honor all perspectives: teachers, students, administrators, and families, in regards to innovative teaching methods, which today, often include technology. This fits nicely with my Reggio background and the belief that all children, from a very young age, should be honored and respected as contributors of meaningful and insightful ideas and reflections. As we work to make our early childhood classrooms more child-centered and responsive to young children’s ideas, reflections, and suggestions (about technology in education), we can also be working towards the same goals in older grades.
My hope is that over time, we can strive to honor everyone in a classroom, from the quiet, three-year-old to the verbose, digitally wise student who would like to have her ideas for technology incorporated in the week’s lesson plan. Over the past few years, many schools and teachers have been working hard to integrate technology into their classrooms but maybe in the push/rush to do this, we are forgetting the lessons we teach our students: problem solve, ask for help, collaborate, research, and learn something new everyday. Let’s apply the same lessons to ourselves and with our peers. Our schools are full of digitally wise students (and families, teachers, and administrators!), let’s utilize and honor all of their expertise and experience to integrate not just technology but a range of ideas, passions, and perspectives about how to integrate and why to integrate technology. Maybe then we can have more responsive, passion-directed teaching and learning in our classrooms.
What does your classroom footprint look like?
The Power of a Comment
Kristina B., Creative Commons Attribution.
It wasn’t until I joined the blogosphere that I realized the power of a simple comment. Before I started blogging myself, I would read other people’s blogs and sometimes peruse the comments that other readers had left behind, but I would never stop to comment myself. On one hand, I felt like I didn’t have anything specific or meaningfully to contribute and on the other hand, I just didn’t understand the importance of comments.
Comments are more than words on a page, particularly if it’s a page you have written yourself. Comments are symbolic, they represent the fact that a post you have written affected someone and meant something to the point that the person felt compelled to respond to you. The comment could be a challenge, a compliment, or even a question but whatever form it takes, it holds meaning. As a blogger, a comment helps to remind you that the blogosphere is a “connected community” and you are not alone with your ideas and opinions. That instead, you are part of a larger culture of sharing. This sharing is so exciting! To feel that you can start an idea, publish it, and send it out into the world wide web for others to build on, improve on, and respond to you with new perspectives or contradictions that you can learn from, is amazing.
This is why, more and more, I find myself stopping to not only read other bloggers but to comment on their posts. I hope to convey, with the power of a comment, how much I appreciated their sharing and how valuable I found their ideas. I want to let the blogger know that their post made me think and many times, that I learned something new. I’ve grown bolder in asking questions in posts and even leaving behind a suggestion or two if I have a relevant idea or resource to offer. And in this way, I feel like I can call myself a true part of the blogosphere community, because I have become a participant not just in the publication side but in the dialogical, sharing aspect that truly binds a community and builds a strong foundation of collaboration and caring.
What do others in the blogosphere community think? Is a comment powerful to you?
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Posted in Reflections
Tagged Blog, Blogger, Blogosphere, Comments, community, perspective, reflection, social media