Discussion 1

I agree with a few points made by earlier postings. I also struggled with some of the viewpoints presented by Prensky. While I agree that students today are different and unique and that our teaching should meet students where they are now, I too struggle with the idea of "giving in" to that "instant gratification offered by technology." (I think Michelle brought up this point in her post.) Thinking of my own subject area of English language arts, I find it challenging to make reading and writing easily accessible and easy to engage students in; they are not things that can be made "fast". It's a process that takes a lot of whole class and one-on-one discussion-- as well as a lot of time. I completely agree with Kayla on the computer game issue. I don't think we should use technology simply to make school more fun. I think a tremendous benefit of technology in the classroom is the possibility of making lessons opportunities for authentic learning. For instance, in my future classroom, my students and I can use technology as reading and writing workshop "tools", means of creating virtual storyworlds, and allowing students the chance to take on different roles by writing newspaper articles, making video documentaries, researching, designing, etc. I don't know if I would call these activities "entertaining" but hopefully engaging and authentic. To borrow Prensky's language, I almost think it would be "lazy" to throw computer games at our students to do the teaching. At the same time, I agree with his point that our students are multi-taskers, and it is going to take interactive lessons to meet their needs.

While Straker's article is thorough and informative, I feel like it contains a lot of information I've heard before. I do like how it presents negative and positive sides to the use of computers. I think it is good practice as teachers to always try to see the benefits and drawbacks of using technology and how it will affect our students. While computers are increasingly accessible to our students, I also think we cannot assume that all of our students have access, or at least have easy access, to computers or the internet. Of course, this largely depends on where we are teaching, the backgrounds of our students, and our students' home and school resources. Straker's article does a good job of highlighting the social networking computers provide, and this networking can harm or benefit our students. Either way, this networking is most likely only going to strengthen and continue to play a major role in our students lives. We just have to find ways to use the possibilities offered by this interaction to our students' advantage and as a possible source of empowerment. I'm interested to see what comes of the research being done on what computers do to children's physical and cognitive development, and if this information will even really be valued as computers continue to play a major part in all our lives.