Context & Rationale Digital Natives & 21st Century Learners

Growth Mindset Needed, Not Digital Natives

According to Prensky, digital natives are “native speakers of digital language”, while a digital immigrant is defined as those who didn’t grow up with technology and had to learn/adapt along the way (2001a). But are these terms still relevant with the constantly changing and evolving uses of technology in the classroom? Technology has become an expected area of understanding for teachers as part of the overall best practice, similar to good classroom management being expected in all classes. While I would be more considered a digital native by Prensky's terms, I know people from all ages who are very competent using technology.

I believe the idea of digital natives and digital immigrants is very outdated in my international context. If we consider our students to be digital immigrants now, what will our students be in 50 or 100 years? Are these terms even necessary?  Our school is a 1 to 1 laptop school for both teachers and students. It is essential that all students and teachers embrace the use of technology when appropriate for teaching and learning.  The idea of digital natives and digital immigrants is erased and replaced with terms such as growth mindset and fixed mindset becoming more relevant for integrating technology. In a previous post, I focused on the importance of expanding our knowledge by problem solving, resiliency and pushing boundaries of personal understanding with an emphasis on growth mindset and not labelling individuals as digital natives or immigrants (MacLean, 2015). For further reading of my ideas of the importance of a growth mindset, please read here.

We should be encouraging our teachers and students to be open-minded and willing to learn regardless of the medium. We should be encouraging our students to be risk-takers, to make mistakes and to learn from them. Having a growth mindset, allows us to be open to new challenges (which could be technology for some).

Our current school policies do not lend themselves to the terms digital natives or digital immigrants. Rather, again, there is an expectation of teachers using technology only when appropriate for best practice and students using technology as a resource only when it enhances their learning.

21st Century Learner Or Just a Learner

As a teacher, it is my role to facilitate learning for students by helping them develop skills and conceptual understandings that can be transdisciplinary and transferred into any avenue for their future. Students need to learn to be good communicators, creative and critical thinkers, collaborative, with an ability to be self-managed, engaged and passionate about learning. These skills can be developed through a multitude of learning experiences in both formal and informal settings. In addition, being reflective needs to be combined into this learning process as well.

Again, I truly believe that the label of a 21st century learner is now irrelevant. To me, it is just being a learner. We want our students to develop skills to be lifelong learners, now and always. It is not something that is restricted to only the 21st century and many educators understood the importance of teaching transdisciplinary skills before the 21st century and will continue to after the 21st century.

From an ICT integration standpoint, I use the 6 ICT in PYP skills as a way to fuse effective technology implementation into the curriculum where necessary. These include: creating, collaborating, organising, communicating, investigating and developing a digital citizen (The role of ICT in PYP, 2011). In order to be effective using any technology tool, students need to develop  the finer skills associated with these to be successful. There are so many collaborative tools that exist, but it is more important for students to understand how to use group roles, taking turns, respectfully disagreeing and having healthy debates than how to use Padlet or Google Docs. Students need to learn how to build on others ideas while giving credit and not feel that someone is stealing their idea. These skills can be taken out of the technology world and applied into other real world experiences, which makes the learning meaningful and longlasting.

Through an inquiry-based, constructivist teaching model, students can develop their curiosity for learning and learn the skills to find the answers to what they want to learn. When passion and enthusiasm is involved as a learner, the learning really is limitless.

References

The role of ICT in PYP. (2011). International Baccalaureate. UK: IB.

MacLean, E. (2015, November 20). Digital Immigrant or Native? Growth Mindset More Important [Blog]. Retrieved from http://emilymacleanmed.blogspot.sg/2015/11/digital-immigrant-or-native-growth.html

Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).

Digital Immigrant or Native? Growth Mindset More Important

Evolution involves adapting to a surrounding to survive over time. In the education profession, it is similar as a teacher in a digital age. According to Marc Prensky (2001), digital immigrants are individuals who have not grown up in a digital age and have needed to adapt and adopt the new 'language' of technology'. Digital Natives are individuals who have grown up using technology. We can't expect the educational world to regress back to times without technology so it is up to both the 'digital immigrant' and 'digital native' to continue to evolve with their environment by embracing education with technology integration.

By that definition, I would be considered more on the digital native end of the spectrum with technology integrated into my schooling and experiences at times, though not fully.  Technology played a large role in my educational upbringing in university. My students therefore be digital natives as they have always grown up surrounded by technology with access to technology.

For me, I believe those labels don't belong in education. Rather I believe the focus should be more on growth mindset and the willingness to learn. No student or educator will ever know all there is when it comes to technology. It is important to have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mixed as an approach to learning.

Image from: http://carriekepple.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Growth-v-Fixed.jpg

A growth mindset as an educator allows you to be open-minded to new ideas and concepts. Educators with a growth mindset enjoy trying to challenge their thinking and push boundaries beyond their current knowledge. An educator with a growth mindset continues to problem solve with resiliency until they are able to come to a suitable solution. 'Not possible' is not the answer, rather an opportunity to try something new.

When we stop worrying about failing or looking silly for trying, we can allow ourselves the ability to explore a technology to understand it and find deeper and more meaningful uses of it within our classrooms.

Image from: https://chrishildrew.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fixedgrowth-copy.jpg

For more thoughts on being willing to learn and eliminating the labels of digital native and immigrant,  please feel free to check out an earlier blog post here.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), p. 1-6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816

As I was reading the Marc Prensky articles, I felt like the labels are less relevant if we think more about a balanced approach to technology as well as a willingness to be a risk taker and learn/use technology. 

My students have a 1-to-1 laptop programme at our school and regularly use them as a resource for their studies. For major projects, I tell my students they can choose how they show their knowledge as long as I can see what they know. Many projects have them making presentations, videos, animations and more. However, I still remember the first time I had students approach me and ask if they could make a brochure by hand instead of doing it digitally. Of course I said it was but it also became a more frequent conversation. I also had students going to the library looking for books rather than looking online at sites. It is important to know what resources are available and how to access them. It amazed me at first that students wouldn't want to incorporate technology but rather have a variety of options. There are sometimes days when our laptops go untouched from our desk and then others where we are on them a good chunk of the day. Even I still prefer a notebook and pen for my to do lists but find taking notes for my studies online easier. It is important that students understand that technology is just one of the many resources available for them to draw upon. Thus, even our digital natives don't always want technology but rather it is necessary to find the balance and appropriate times to use technology effectively. 

I also thought about it is more important to have a willingness to use and explore technology rather than whether or not you grew up using technology as a 'digital native'. I would argue I am more on the digital native spectrum. But still have a lot of digital immigrant tendencies. I grew up using technology from elementary school but the last 2 years is when I really have skyrocketed in my learning. There are others of all ages at my school who are very proficient with their technology usage and others who aren't. A few of our new teachers who would definitely be considered digital natives are not comfortable using technology in the classroom. So is it more important you grew up in it? Or are more willing to explore teaching through technology? Labels can sometimes be too confining to fully explain the situation in reality. 

I also wonder if we are needing to rethink our teaching as digital immigrants for the digital natives, what will this impact be 10, 20 , 50 years from now? How will it effect the new generation beyond our current digital natives. What implications will there be when digital natives are teaching digital natives? (Or even teaching the next label we come up with?)

Gamification and games based learning has been a real interest of mine in the last year. We have created some full units that are games and I'm excited we will be exploring this more in the next few weeks. Games are so engaging, rewarded, and have a low failure rate. Students have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and try a variety of tasks. There are awards, leader boards, levels, main quests, side quests, avatars and storylines to really help the students have fun while learning. Hope to have some great discussions about this in the coming weeks.