Electronic communication is now integral to the infrastructure of organizations everywhere. So it should go without saying that the ability to use and communicate EFFECTIVELY with computers and technology is now a basic requirement for success in any school system or workplace. The wide spread use of computers and electronic communication has resulted in a whole new vernacular involving technical jargon, emoticons, common abbreviations, and levels of formality, all ripe with potential for communication breakdowns. Even techno-savvy learners must learn the accompanying language competencies that enable them to utilize this technical knowledge effectively.
So while technology has given us the tools to communicate, the need for teachers to teach their students how to communicate effectively is EVEN more important …MORE relevant than ever before! Yet teachers everywhere resist change while lamenting :
- We are a language program
- We are a history program
- We are an arts program
- WE ARE NOT A TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
“Today's students - K through college represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. What should we call these new students of today?.... The most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past. The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. Today’s older folk were "socialized" differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain."
Many teachers today were educated before the technology revolution that has transformed the way we work and communicate. The Internet Generation has extremely high expectations of their instructors, not only in regards to the instructor’s subject area expertise, but also as to the instructor’s ability to use and integrate current technology into their curriculum. Not wanting to lose face with their “plugged in” students, instructors run from technology under the mistaken belief that their pupils are expert in all thinks technical.
Comfort with technology, however, is not the same thing as proficiency. So while teachers everywhere insist that technology is overtaking the essentials... that "we are throwing the baby out with the bath water (not to mention throwing hundreds of millions of dollars away on this technology stuff)", we also continue to insist our students can’t write - or spell - or communicate’, and we continue to avoid using the very tools we need to capture our students’ interest and respect.
But while the content may have changed, and the tools have most certainly changed, the overriding goals remain. It is still our job to teach students how to make meaningful ideas out of all those pesky verbs and nouns and it’s still our job to teach them to do that appropriately in context.
Educational Technologies enhance any classroom and any subject area by providing students with:
- Increased Authenticity – Educational technologies expose students to authentic, relevant and meaningful language.
- Voice – Online language learners have the opportunity to participate in a variety, of written, spoken and multimedia based communication and activities with a wide range of native and non-native speakers, as well as with their teachers and their peers.
- Equal learning opportunities: Online experiences open up a wide variant of opportunities for students to participate whom might not otherwise be able to or feel uncomfortable participating in the classroom…a classroom where they may be too shy to speak up, feel dominated by other more outspoken students, or possibly just feel more comfortable in a different, less immediate medium.
- Individual attention – Educational technologies enhance student-to-student communication and student-to-teacher communication. Online communication as well as interactions with language programs provide a wealth of opportunities for greater teacher student communications as well as time on task activities and feedback provided by the computer that are supplemental to those available during the constraints of a face to face classroom.
- Freedom of expression- Research as shown that “people often feel freer to express their feelings online than in person and are more comfortable asking questions and expressing ideas to their teachers and other students in online environments
- Convenience and accessibility - Anytime anywhere access provides students and teachers with the ability to access materials remotely, as required, in order to meet both the needs of their learning, as well as, the needs and curriculum.
- Engagement - Educational technologies draw on a variety of resources, while appealing to a wide range of learning styles by involving student in both active learning and exposing them to a variety of textual and multimedia instructional activities.'
Emoticons and Internet Slang aren’t wrong… they don’t belong in a formal essay or on a job resume (or a lot of other places for that manner). Good manners are still good manners. The internet didn’t invent bad bahaviour…but now we must teach Netiquette instead of etiquette
In different contexts, different levels of informality and formality are appropriate- just has they’ve always been. We still need to teach our students how to correspond…But with email now the primary medium for academic and business communication; we need to teach students how to write an effective and appropriate email
Check it Out: The Dreaded Reply All
Most importantly, we need to teach our students how to create a digital footprint that is appropriate and professional.
Teachers must learn the vernacular of the 21st century in order to develop the communication skills their students need and to capitalize on the technological expectations they have of us. If we don’t speak technology, then we can’t prepare our students for the world they live in…and that’s our job!
References:
Prensky, M. (2001, Oct.). In Digital Natives Digital Immigrants. Retrieved Jan. 15, 2010, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Kaur Khalsa, D., Maloney-Krichmar, D., & Kreeft Peyton, J. (2007). Call Environments Research Practice and Critical Issue. In J. Egbert & E. Hanson-Smith (Eds..), Theory and research: Interaction via Computers (p. 19-31). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Inc..
The Soap Box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo_Py9Hp3Jg
How to Follow Proper Netiquette Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRoclqDJh0
The Dreaded Reply All
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heatherleigh/archive/2005/06/02/424494.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment