Digi-teens

I came across an interesting article titled “Digi-tools: Hi-Tech for the Digital Generation” by Diane Carver. The article describes and reviews a course offered by the Bethel School District as part of the Career and technical  Education department to Ninth grade students. The course, conveniently titled “Digitools” provides enrolled students to interactively learn different subjects by “working”. The concept of the course is completely hands-on and the students’ success depends entirely on them and their efforts. From day one, students are considered employees of a business simulated in their classroom. The main object of the course is that students are requested to fulfill a number of tasks and are evaluated in their performance of doing so. So many other qualities important for students to learn are highlighted within the course such as competition, perseverance and pride. Within the class curriculum students learn far more than basic programming and computer skills but many of the tasks requested venture into the realms of business, marketing, advertising, communication and undoubtedly innovation.

I chose this article because I find learning while “working” to be a fascinating phenomenon and I endorse it 100%. This article presents us with a perfect and ideal example of what it means to teach progressively. Students of this day and time request that we assure them that they are prepared for the world outside the classroom walls and courses like Digitools will be a tangible way of doing so. In the Digitools classroom the student steers his own fate and chooses to fail or succeed depending on the level of commitment allotted and the prevalence of comprehension in all areas within the unit. Teachers, like Mrs. Aszklar manage to achieve and maintain progressive education within their classroom walls as she steers clear of teaching strategies such as rote memorization and allows for students to be inquisitive and for their curiosity and interest to build in the topics that appeal to them most. More importantly, the course focuses on building much needed connections between the concepts taught and life outside those walls, and as we know making connections is a progressive strategy of teaching as the teacher is not plainly teaching the subjects required but instead allowing students to reach higher level thinking skills such as synthesizing and inferring.

I am impressed at how the course is designed to cover different subjects and proves to be relevant to the curriculum. Mrs. Aszklar seconds that notion when she says “ My assignments and activities are designed around my students to make the classroom learning environment not only rigorous,but also extremely relevant. My students come to class excited to learn and are engaged for the entire period.” ( p.40) Activities such as writing a cover letter, and customizing a resume is sure to strengthen students’ language arts skills, participating and conducting job interviews works on their oral skills. Not to mention the ample web-based tools that they are required to use that help them become more creative and innovative. 

Marc Prensky, the author of “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” writes the blatant truth about why the educators of our time seem to have a great deal of trouble instructing the youth of this generation. He labels the youth to be N-gen (Net Generation) or D-gen (Digital Generation) because the technology of today is all they know and do. He finally coined the term Digital Natives and for the less in-tune teachers; Digital Immigrants. He argues, that unfortunately the gap between teachers and students today will not mend by trying to change the students because, we have to face the fact that technology is not going anywhere and it is booming and evolving by the hour some days. Consequently, it is important for the digital immigrants to instead reach out to them by providing them with learning tools that speak their language, and try to refrain from reaching back to their “accent”. He strongly suggests that instructors and organizations work on revamping their methodology and content to better serve the natives. He urges to steer clear of the “legacy”; otherwise known as the traditional content and keep up with the “future” more progressive content. Prensky goes on to say “we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content. After all, it‟s an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.” (p. 4) Computer games seem to be a viable solutions according to several sources as Diane Carver also agrees with him when she describes creating video games as one of the most successful means to comprehension in the Digitools course “where students use Scratch game programming to create games that can be viewed and played by their potential customers. Students may also create games for employee training within their simulated business. When students realize they can use their animations and games to create interactive content within their organization, they begin to realize how all these elements fit together from a business perspective.” (p.41) Therefore, we can see the importance of bringing the digital natives and immigrants to speak the same language and to conform to the difference and a course like Digitools helps students “bridge the gap between using technology

for fun and using technology for practical, real-world functions. Digitools is a great way to get students motivated about learning and a great foundation on which to build and promote technology-related CTE programs.” (p. 41)

In terms of applying a course like Digitools to your adolescent instructional setting, you should be sure to include plenty of hands-on, interactive and most importantly “realistic” activities that prepares students to deal with the world around them. Also, to use Prensky's terms, as teachers we should try really hard to learn the native language of the adolescents we are teaching in order to have meaningful classroom sessions. 


Suggested Readings and References:

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital native, digital immigrant. On the horizon, 9(5),

Carver, D. (2012). Digitools.