Partnering with your Digital Native Learners

Presenter: Mark Prensky

Three Threads:
1. Changing Students
2. Changing Instruction: Differentiated, Student Centered, Teacher Coached
3. Rapidly Changing Technology

Guiding Questions:
Who are today's students? Are they different?
-The environment for students is accelerated change.
How should we teach them?
What is the role of the teacher?

The environment for students is accelerated change.
"In our lifetime students will see technology that is 3 trillion times as powerful."
All of his information is derived from kids.
OUR job is to prepare kids for a future that is unknown.
KIds were born to the idea of rapid change.
How often should we change our teaching style? Kids say every couple of days.

What makes a digital native?
Attitude - no fear, willing to touch everything and think about something that is positive in his life.

Those who didn't growu p with technology often have a 'digital immigrant accent'.
-Printing out our emails
-Not instinctively going to the internet FIRST
-not sharing easily
-assuming 'real life' happens only offline
-think the way we do things is the only right way

The kids say there is so much separation from what the students think and the teachers think.

The top things to do to improve learning...
Teachers say:
-1 to 1 computers
-Training
-Smaller classes
-Support

Students say:
-1 to 1 computers
-wi-fi in classroom
-no filtering
-notes/texts online
-teach kids who don't know (peer-to-peer)

Kids learn from being engaged, doing and gameplay, random access and exploring options, multi-tasking, choices, lots of tools

E.O.E.
"Engage me or Enrage me"

The trouble is that engagement is training.

10 Things students want:
1. Want to be respected and have values
2. want to folow own interests and passions
3.want to create
4.don't want to be lectured to
5.want to work with peers on group projects with w ays to prevent slackers
6.want to express and hsare their opinions
7.t hey want to make decisions want to share control
8want to connect with peers around the world
9want to cooperate and compete with each other
10.want an education that's not jus relevant, they want it to be real

Learning (and certainly engagement)comes from passion, not discipline.

Verbs Vs. Nouns
Nouns(Tools) - Powerpoint, Email, Wikipedia
Verbs(Skills)) - Presenting, Communicating, Learning

The verbs stay the same but the nouns(tools) change rapidly. You cannot get attached to a noun (ie. Powerpoint) because they change rapidly.
i.e.
Books-->Video
Powerpoint-->Flash

The kids should be using the most up to date tools for whatever they are learning. Everyday we deny them that we are denying them of their birthright as a digital native. We should spend technology because it's their birthright.

Do digital tools lead automatically to learning? NO!

Teachers are important. Some say just adding technology is the answer but if it's not well-integrated with the learning and teaching it isn't.

How should we teach students?

"A lot of teachers think they make powerpoints so awesome but its just like writing on a blackboard" - a student

The old way is students being taught.
The better way is students teaching themselves with the guidance or coaching of teachers and that leads to engagement.
The name for this is Partnering. You can call it PBL, CBL, IBL, Student Centered Learning, etc.

What is the role of the teacher?

Guide/Coach
Farming Analogy: We need to cultivate, provide the conditions necessary for students to succeed.
We need to move from Lecuturing to and controlling your students to guiding and partnering with our students.
Teachers need to change into a 21st century learner as well.

"My teachers just talk and talk and talk" - a student

If you ask students what they want instead of talking:
projects, case studeies, projects, etc.

The time of the teacher as lecture/presenter/talker has passed. These types of teachers are not a good tool for developing 21st century learners.

Teachers need to be
Preparing students for their ownknown future.
Help students find their passions.
Help students look at the problems of the future.
Help prepare them for the world they will live in.

What is the role of technology?
Technology's only role is to support the new partnering pedagogy. Pedagogy of students teaching themselves with teachers whose role is to coach and guide.
The prerequisite is before technology is incorporated, teachers have to move to partnering with their students.
Teachers need to be using the latest tools, but only in the support of that pedagogy.

Teach the partnering pedagogy instead of teaching the nouns.

Teachers must learn to share the work. Let kids do what they do well and teachers do what they do well(asking questions, add quality and rigor, putting things in context).

5 keys to partnering:
The Givens:
Guiding Questions
Focus on the Verbs
Use the appropriate Nouns
Let the kids use the technology
Kids say 'Allow us to be creative. How much of ourselves can we put into it?"
Always be Real
Kids say "Why do I have to learn this?" Because it is their passion..
Keep improving, Keep getting better.

The Prensky Apostacy
Teachers shouldn't waste a second of their precious time learning to create with new technology tools(unless it's their passion). The students want to do it themselves.

Rule #1 - Never use the technology for the students. Let students use it! The kids should be using all the technology. The teacher should be the questioner, and supply the rigor.
"Video is the new text" - You Tube, Teacher Tube, Big Think
"Phones are the new textbook" - Teachers need to start evaluating students with their tools!
"Most of our tests ARE open phone test - you guys just don't know it?" - students
"Games are the new worksheets."

Sidenote:Tim Tyson(Spoke at BLC a couple years ago) - 6th-8th graders made videos about today's hot topics..important issues

Marc Prensky's Slideshows for additional information: http://www.slideshare.net/HandheldLearning/marc-prensky-keynote