Unit 1 Prompt
The
Generational Differences and Boundaries described in the readings and videos
caused me to see my students through a different set of educational lens. Being
a Marketing teacher, I am familiar with labeling consumers based on marketing
segmentation, but their technology and digital profile has painted a different
picture. What I realize is that students
are more digital natives, gamers, socially conscious, multi-tasks, value
diversity, instant gratificationers, achievement oriented, etc. more than I
realized. The Generation X and
Millennials student interact with some kind of technology devices in their personal
and school environment daily.The
two videos “Vision of Students Today and Vision of K-12 Student’s Today,” provided
my examples of student direct responses to how they use traditional tools and
learning strategies versus using digital.
How
students view digital technology and desire to use them as engage learning is
an important issue in the education environment. Although today’s student is
tech savvy, they do not find the traditional learning desirable like their
parents or those born in previous years. The Net Generation and Millennials differences
and habits are very obvious which can be seen by their behavior and how they
react to education. I agree with Pensky on many the information he stated in
his article that today’s students are no longer the people our educational
system was designed to teach. They have more digital tools at their disposal in
their personal world that they use and the educational system has not figured
out how to adapt or incorporate them into the educational system. He also made reference to how generation
differences are practiced and perceived by previous generations. Educators also use limited digital technology
in their classroom because of their lack of training.
McKenzie
made strong points about Pensky failure to consider his findings a valid
research source for brain change, experimental group, and group identification. The errors he identified such as lack of data,
and incorrect medical reference highlighted the flaws in Pensky's article. However,
using words such as Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants are useful categories
to describe generational differences and boundaries. Pensky’s article presented great insight into
the lifestyle and behavior of Net Generation and Millennials students can be
useful to educators regardless
of the flaws.
