Saturday, February 25, 2006

More on Student Voices

Last June, I blogged about an aspect of the NECC 2005 conference that was focused on students and what they think about their role in the educational process and how technology should be used in schools.

A group out of Minnesota, Education|Evolving, recently published a document titled “Student Voices on Technology: Today’s Tech-savvy Students are Stuck in Text-dominated Schools.” This paper is an effective summary of student attitudes and perceptions about technology and how it is used in schools.

I found many of the points highlighted in the document (all with references) a strong indication of just how out of touch we are with our constituents. As adults, we tend to think that we have a lock on the best and only way to educate. The most glaring error in that thinking is that what we think tends to be based on how we were taught. The world is very different as many of us are now willing to admit. And one of the most powerful things we can do to help us navigate this new world is to rely on the voices of our own students.

Some of the points from the document that connected with me:

Yet students report that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. Students’ educational use of the Internet generally occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside the direction of their teachers (3)

And it’s just not the Internet. Kids today use all kinds of technology far more outside of school, for learning, than they do in the classroom. The two worlds are too different, a sign we adults aren’t getting it yet.

While students’ use of IM and email may appear to adults to be trivial communications, students are in fact advancing a new communications style that is based upon instant feedback and short bursts of information exchange. Students view online communications as a very personal exchange medium, not a cold impersonal machine-to-machine operation as many adults do. (5)

It really is about the perspective from which you approach these technologies - from that of the digital native or digital immigrant.

Adults, who are often not sure of how to integrate technology and education, do more to stymie, than to embrace, student’s ability to use technology. (8)

We stymie, most of the time unknowingly, because we think we need to protect them. And to an extent, we do. But too many administrators that establish school technology policy run scared and go overboard in terms of controlling - to the point that technologies are at least inconvenient and often unusable.

Ideally, students want adults to work toward “any place computing” for students, which students could put to educational and personal use. (10)

How many leaders are visioning toward ubiquitous computing? Or are they so wrapped up in the protect/control minutia that they’ll have to react when the time comes? Often you hear the, “It’s too expensive.” comment. Sure it is, as long as you look at technology as an overlay to an antiquated way of instruction. How many institutions are examining ways of doing things differently that will actually save money, funelling it into technology expenses?

Students want teachers to employ technology to create challenging instructional activities. Students believe this would improve their attitude toward school and learning. Today, adults are using technology primarily for course management, which students find useful, but too one-dimensional. (11)

Amen. As a group, the students get it. When will we adults? When we listen to our students and realize that we have an under-developed vision of how technology can work for them.

Posted by Randy on 02/25 at 10:50 AM
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