Students in their teens, and even younger, spend hours everyday on the computer. With sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter out there, students are using technology to connect to the world around them. According to eSchoolNews, three-fourths of American teens are members on social networking sites. Kids are learning that they can learn anything by simply typing it into Google. What an essay on A Christmas Carol? Simply search for it. Didn't read your Heart of Darkness homework? Find a chapter-by-chapter summary. Technology is taking over the world, especially in the classroom. Microsoft and the Corporation for National and Community Service are starting an initiative to help students teach teachers how to better incorporate technology in the classroom. I mean, who knows technology better than the students? If students help teachers integrate technology into their lessons, students feel empowered and they end up choosing exactly how they want to learn, plus teachers learn some great new ideas. According to the annual Grunwald Associates' Survey, "Digitally Inclined", 76% of K-12 educators are using digital media in their classrooms in 2009, which is a 7% increase from 2008. At this rate, technology is going to become a critical component in every classroom in America during the next decade. Teachers are using digital media more and more. Online videos are becoming used in classrooms constantly. 72% of teachers surveyed said that they streamed or downloaded digital media from the internet in the past year. With all the digital resources out there, teachers should take full advantage of the internet. If students understand technology in a way that teachers might not, why not have them help us understand? I believe that as educators, we should be open to all available resources, even if they are are students. Technology is a gift is used correctly, so let's let our students teach us the behind-the-scenes stuff that we would have never found on our own. Teachers can incorporate technology for in class lessons, but they can also use it for out of class assignments.
One particularly great way to incorporate technology into assignments is asking students to blog. Although high school students are constantly online, studies find that fewer and fewer teens are blogging. Blogging is a very important in English classrooms. Blogging combines teens' love of the internet with writing. Maybe students find blogging to be boring or pointless but it is teaching them to write without forcing them to do term papers. What's the problem with blogging? Students still do not want to do it, even though it involves the computer. The new study from Pew Internet & American Life Project, called “Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults", says that blogging is not dying but is going the way of email and the telephone--it's becoming untrendy. Students don't like the thought of having to come up with ideas on their own. Present blogging to students in a way that might interest them. Maybe allow students to blog about their interests, making it more like a journal instead of a graded paper. I love the thought of students writing about what they love, what makes them passionate. By bringing the students' interests into the classroom, we can empower them in a way that might spark something deep within them to continue learning. Let's make learning fun. Let's put our students in a place of power.
Staff and Wire Reports. "Teens’ Social Media Use on the Rise, but Fewer Are Blogging."ESchoolNews (2010): 1-3. ESchoolNews. 4 Feb. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2010.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/02/04/teens-social-media-use-on-the-rise-but-fewer-are-blogging/
Prabhu, Maya T. "Teacher's Digital Media Use on the Rise." ESchoolNews (2010).ESchoolNews. Feb. 2010. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. 115
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/01/05/survey-teachers-digital-media-use-is-increasing/
Barack, Lauren. "Students to Help Teachers Better Use Tech." School Library Journal (2010).School Library Journal. 1 Feb. 2010. Web. 25 Mar. 2010.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6717185.html
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