GRAY’S SPACE

I have already spoken at length about Prensky’s brave new world (as have many in the course). Perhaps the course are using journalism as reference material to invoke controversy and discussion. I was reading Jamie McKenzie’s in depth analysis of Prensky’s article this morning and was quite amused at the number shallow claims and lack of credible sources that Prensky uses to drive his argument home.

Remember all the information on physically changing brains structures that Prensky hyped by quoting ONE source -quoting Dr Berry. Well he doesn’t even exist. Here is what McKenzie has to say:

Does Dr. Bruce exist? What has he written?

A search at Google and Google Scholar shows that the only time Dr. Bruce D. Berry appears is in articles citing Prensky’s work. There are no publications of his own listed anywhere. Nor are any listed at Amazon.com. Nor is Dr. Bruce listed at the Baylor College of Medicine at http://www.bcm.edu/directory/ His work cannot be found at ERIC. Where does he work? What has he written? We cannot find him, his research or his books.

McKenzie goes onto say:

‘many technology cheerleaders have adopted Prensky’s language to describe the relationship between various generations and things digital. His view is intellectually bankrupt, but simple-minded thinking is often attractive’.

In the end, the majority of us saw through Prensky’s straw man argument. I find it quite interesting that we need to work through articles of this quality when we could use our precious time on something factual.

I enjoyed the Socio-cultural context of Secondary education course at UTS . Unfortunately it doesn’t have the techniques to really prepare you for the onslaught of a school with a heavy NESB population and low socio economic background. Couple that with Ramadan (70% of class were fasting) and 80% of the class disengaged and many with learning difficulties. It’s a really interesting mix!! I guess no Uni course really could prepare you for that.

I am really glad I went to the school because it was so challenging , difficult and different to my first prac. Next year when I teach in a similar school I know what to expect and now have a whole range of techniques that will help in the first year. As they kept telling me- it’s all about classroom management in your first year and it definitely was in this school.

I just read Prensky part 2.Digital natives, digital immigrants. He quotes some pretty amazing statistics. In 2001 the average teenager was spending between 4-5 hours per day on gaming,email,texting and television. When these statistics were evaluated there was no myspace or facebook and many more of the goodies on Web 2.0 .

So if the average teenager gets home roughly at 4pm has a snack to eat and gets into his average tech time then it will be somewhere around 8.30-9pm before he comes up for air! but I’ve forgotten about dinner with the family!! So when do they get a chance to do their homework and assessment?

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II:
Do They Really Think Differently?
By Marc Prensky
From On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 6, December 2001)
© 2001 Marc Prensky
Different

Here goes my first podcast on my dream for education. teach-pod-cast-1

I hope you enjoy.

Paul

P.S All the photos were taken by me and I wrote and produced the music – So Copyright is clear

In Prensky’s Brave New World (Digital natives, digital immigrants.)- The Digital Native is the Young restless Imperialist – a leader , waiting to assume his rightful role on the throne. He must be patient as he suffers in his interactions with his Digital immigrants subject/tutors- Let’s face it these immigrants will always have an “accent” and do things a little backwards like reading a manual or printing off a report instead of reading it online.

Have you ever had the pleasure of trying to teach the ‘twitch speed’ native a difficult skill such as playing piano. I have taught piano for the last 15 years and am yet to find a correlation between these highly prized multi-tasking ,hyper texting- native skills and the ability of natives to play a simple piano piece of their own choosing. Concentration is a demanding skill.

The most unfortunate thrust of this article is the divide it sets up between natives and immigrants. There never appears to be a place where one can learn from the other in respect and tolerance. There is a simple term for that-racism. If we have bullying and cyber bullying, why not digital racism?

Racism never leads to positive outcomes . Lets look for the things that unite. I hope you enjoy the photo.