Learning From Baby George Response

 In the Ted Talk Learning From Baby George, by Mike Wesch we learn that learning is a fundamental human trait, however it has been misdefined for us by school itself. Especially in higher education, we are trying to sneak past our education in all different kinds of ways. Wesch, a professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has studied his students and found out some fundamentals on how students learn.

Wesch had hit a point in his career where he thought he wasn't getting through to his students. He felt defeated and like he wasn't doing his job right. Questions were always based on getting the grade and he was fearing real learning wasn't taking place. So he started taking students to lunch. He would spend hours getting to know them and he discovered that there were three important questions students kept asking:

1. Who am I?

2. What am I going to do?

3. Will I make it?

These three questions were what were driving students. Wesch tell several stories in his Ted Talk about various students, one who has been orphaned and taken in by a teacher, one who's wife and child left him and so many more. Wesch then talks about his son George, who is one and learning to climb stairs. George has no fear and when he fails, he continuously tries again laughing the whole way. George eventually gets it right. 

What Wesch discovers is that real learning is about the questions you take out of class that inspire you and force you to take chances. It is about learning how to make a life worth living. It is about loving yourself enough to pick yourself back up and using the resources afforded to you to better your life. 

Wesch unknowingly acted on these beliefs before he even had them. He felt stagnant and stuck. He felt he wasn't doing his job correctly. So, he asked questions, he learned from his students, his son, and the world around him. He grew exponentially from his social experiment and continues to grow from it. 

The Digital Age is Complicated - Prensky v. Boyd

 

My reading last evening was on Marc Prensky's "Digital Narratives" (using a slide deck) and Danah Boyd's "It's Complicated" (in specific, chapter 7). 

The position that Prensky takes is that the younger generation (from the digital age) are what we call "digital natives". They are inherently born with knowledge about living in their digital world. They are much more tech savvy and they process things at lightning or "twitch" speed. They can process multiple things at once and will randomly jump into what they are doing virtually. They look mainly for the graphics, then the words. They are super connected. Those of us born before the "digital age" are known as digital immigrants. They are more conventional and step by step. They process things in a linear way. They read the text first, then look for the graphics. According to Prensky, digital immigrants can be spotted easily because they use nouns instead of verbs, turn to paper before technology, they tend to feel uncomfortable around new technology. and they think that real life doesn't exist online. One of Prensky's largest concerns are that digital natives are being asked to power down in school by digital immigrants, which works against them. 

Boyd's point of view stands against that of Prensky. Boyd is very much against the terms native and immigrant. She wants steer clear of those terms because of the inaccuracies they represent. She claims that this term ignores the work needed to help youth develop a broad digital competency. She feels that parents, educators and policymakers should still be collectively intervening to support learners regardless of their digital background. Boyd feels that technological literacy takes hard work regardless of age. On page 176 she states, “Many of today’s teens are indeed deeply engaged with social media and are active participants in networked publics, but this does not mean that they inherently have the knowledge or skills to make the most of their online experiences.” She feels that there are huge variations among teens of knowledge and experience of meaningful technologies. On page 177 Boyd also states “Teens may make their own media or share content online, but this does not mean that they inherently have the knowledge or perspective to critically examine what they consume.” She makes it abundantly clear in her argument that just because teens are tech savvy when using social media platforms, that does not mean that they know how to correctly use all of the tools afforded to them digitally. Actually on the contrary, in her research, students seemed confused and unsure what legitimate resources on the web looked like.

I stand more so on the side of Boyd. As an educator of emergent bilinguals, I am not fond of the comparison to natives and bilinguals. I also find a lot of truth in what Boyd is saying. When reading Prensky's work, I was not sure where I stood. I was born between the two era's and so I grew up learning the technologies as they came (late 80's baby here)! Digital immigrant suggests that those older than me struggle digitally, yet my father works in the field of computer technology and always has (he is one of the most tech savvy people I know). To suggest he is an "immigrant" of sorts just seemed odd to me. Boyd suggests that we all must work hard to learn about technology to become technologically literate, and I feel this is more accurate. So many of my students can work Tik Tok and Facebook, yet they struggle to use Google to find credible sources.

Who I am..

 A little bit about me. I am a wife, a mother, an educator, an artist, a writer, and forever a learner. I love running, even if my body doesn't always show it (but hey, this vessel created four little lives)! I am a lover of nature! I enjoy music, not a specific genre, just ALL music. I am currently working on my own novel, and hope to send it off to publishers by the end of 2023. I am the type of teacher that gives their all, and tries to connect students to what they are learning (hence the photo from a themed "The Outsiders" day).

I am very much looking forward to this summer, spending time with my family and taking a much needed break. So far, we have already traveled to New York and visited Legoland New York (if you have littles in your life, I very much recommend this amazing park)! Living lakeside, there will be plenty of swimming and fun in the sun!