Digital Students

Are we as educators considering how to motivate our digital students?

 The following video can give you an idea of what a “digital student” means.

Video: Pay Attention from Teacher Tube

 This video about Teachning Generation X & Y is really worth taking a look at.

Digital divide

I teach my students how to use Blogs and Wikis in our classrooms.  The computers in our computer lab are very old and the connection is terribly slow. Due to this I spend a lot of time preparing classes at home.

 Today I joined Twitter that is a great tool but my most faithful follower is Vicky,my 4 year old daughter, who has seen me many hours working in front of the computer.

When she was 3 year old she could:

• Manage the mouse and I never taught her how to use it
• Just by observing she could turn on the computer and she could turn it off.

 One month ago I created a blog specially for her called Vicky´s learning english. What I do is to follow her teachers´syllabus and I add the same content to the blog. I had to teach her how to go to favourites and look for her blog. She can manage perfectly.

Now she is 4 years old and she always:

• Turns on the computer
• Goes to Favourites and clicks where it says Vicky ( the only name she identifies is Vicky)
• Clicks on the links that she wants

• She can´t read……she can´t write but she can navigate!!

• She can enter Chinese sites and learn songs.

I  have always spoken to her in English so she understands everything that´s way she loves listening to songs. I taught her that when she found a green word (click here) on the Blog that means that she can play a game or listen to a song.

To my big surprise the main idea of creating this blog was for her to continue learning English after class. Technology is helping my daughter learn and enjoy herself at the same time. I can´t imagine what she will be able to do once she learns how to read and write.

Even her friends when they come home to play they prefer the computer instead of the TV. What do they love doing with the Blog? They play games, watch videos , listen to songs and navigate . Almost everything!!

Come on they are only 4 years old!!!!!!!!!!! The digital divide is much bigger than what I thought.

I can’t believe that most teachers are not aware of the importance of using the Internet with students as a learning and knowledge tool.

I hope this post is an eye-opener to many teachers.