Digital Natives are Scared Too

I guess I would define myself as a digital native. I grew up throughout a time where technology was advancing quickly and I believe I was one of the first classrooms that had new technology. As a teacher, I think I am more advanced with technology than others but I do still struggle with some new classroom technologies. This can be frustrating for me since I have not had proper training on most of the technologies in my classroom. Being younger and used to technology, I can struggle through learning it on my own, but it tends to be a tedious task. I also tend to be frustrated with the limitations that schools put on the technology we use. We are spending money to update our classrooms but with the limitations we tend to still be behind the times.

" I believe, in fact, that what teachers need to do is best described not as "changing," but rather as "adapting" to the new context and environment we all find ourselves in... Yet even as teachers become motivated to adapt and move forward, it is not always obvious how to change old habits."
- Marc Prensky, Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning

Just because teachers want to adapt does not mean that they know how or have the ability to. Teachers need to be given the proper tools and teaching in order to adapt their own teaching skills. I think many schools think that teachers are lazy and unwilling, yet most ar
e just scared because they don't know how to implement new technologies and they don't know how it will effect the students' learning.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 20, 2017 at 6:26 PM

    Old habits do die hard. It is sometimes difficult to adjust even when we want to make changes because of many reasons: fear of failure, the immense amount of work it can involve, lack of PD...the reasons are numerous. Too bad a lot of people read it as laziness or an unwillingness.

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