Digital Youth Portraits
Edutopia provides profiles of technologically sophisticated students, with both a video and a written interview for each. The 10 students range in age from nine to 18. They are engaged in a of variety productive, creative uses of technology, including: producing videos; forming groups engaged in social activism; creating animations; writing blogs; and creating educational and other types of web sites. The link above takes you to a menu where you can choose the profile of one or more students.What takeaways are you getting from the profiled kids? How can the ways they are using technology be used with our students?
I am impressed by the titles that the students have given themselves, Gamer, Video Producer, Blogger, etc. They did not say "I am in eighth grade." I can sense their enthusiasm and I can imagine the amount of time that they must spend working to get proficient at each of the technology skills listed. As teachers we can invite students to take an active role in learning and later in presenting that information to others. These students can become proficient on a specific topic and then use technology to share that information with others. A Rubric could be used to assess and provide feedback.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a very good point, Debbe, those kids had to spend a lot of time working to get proficient at what they do. We have many, many students in our classes who work hard at things, who try again and again, failure and failure, and who figure out how to figure things out on their own by looking on Youtube or trying it over again and again.
ReplyDeleteYet put them in school, in a classroom and at the first sign of struggle they are raising their hand asking the teacher and/or giving up. What is it about school that makes kids passive and quitters? I know part of it is that often what they are being forced to learn in school isn't what they are passionate about so the question becomes how can we use their passions and their ability to work hard and stick with a problem until they solve it in our classes?!