Great Choice

I recently started reading the book that I chose for our class, Teaching Tech-Savvy Kids and have been pleasantly surprised. I don't think I could have chosen a better fit for me. This book offers me a continuation of the research I did for the paper that I wrote for our last class, "Student-Centered Models of Professional Development and Classroom Integration". I have read through the first chapter and am anxious to continue. The author, Jessica K. Parker, has structured this book around the idea that, "our goal as educators in understanding youth and digital media should be to frame our discussion around learning, literacy and knowledge rather than merely concentrating on the integration of and access to technological tools" (p. 2).  I agree, in order to remain influential over our classrooms we need to forget what the technological tool is and focus on what it can offer to our students.

In the first chapter, Maryanne Berry, a twelfth grade English teacher, makes the case for using instant messaging as a way to create discussion groups in her classes (I have to admit, as I started reading this passage I would classify myself as skeptical). Berry previously assigned journal entries for her students but five years ago decided to experiment with online chat rooms. The students were required to turn in the transcripts of their chats and to have a certain number of chats throughout the semester. She discovered that the chats were much longer (students meeting on-line often times for an hour or more) and more engaged than the journal entries and peer responses. "The emailed journal responses resembled short written letters between readers, while the instant messaging resembled spoken conversations" (p. 11). Berry also noticed that the students using instant messaging had other successes such as the ease of exchange between students who may not have been friends and that the conversations allowed for students to reveal their understandings and questions of the book. She also noticed that the instant messages allowed for a more abstract and complex understanding of the book. As Berry points out, the results of her five year study indicate that this is certainly one form of "new media" that supports learning. While this is not the conventional journal entry, it certainly is an idea that we need to explore.

I really like that Parker's book is not going to be, in her words, "cut-n-paste activities for teachers to integrate into their classrooms but to really grapple with serious technological and communicative changes that deeply affect how and what students learn in school" (p. 13). Not every teacher has the same style, same knowledge, same pedagogy and therefore what works for one teacher will not necessarily work for another. I like that Parker recognizes that we really need to focus on the learner and how they learn and run with that. I am really looking forward to reading more of her ideas.