Digital Natives - Visual Literacy

Our CTER experience is beginning to wind down, only 6 months and 1-½ classes left. Has anyone noticed that the discussions amongst ourselves are shorter? While each class has been full of useful and new information, I catch myself trying to get excited about each new project and topic that we begin. I know that’s a bad attitude and I would be angry with my own children and my students for acting like that, but it’s true. So while I really (repeat: really) liked the Web quest module, I saw an article about Digital Natives and wondered, “Didn’t we talk about this before?” WELL, apparently I wasn’t paying attention earlier. WOW, did that article by Prensky hit a chord with me. I found myself reading it over and over. I’ll bet I read it 4 times. I made copies (55 copies) of it and put it in the mailboxes of all my teachers at school. I explained it to my son on the way home from his basketball practice; it made an impression with him too. I caught him explaining to his mother how he was a “digital native” while she was only a “digital immigrant.”

Most importantly, I began to rethink my approach to teaching my lower level math students, my Introduction to Algebra students. It hadn’t dawned on me that this was what those students needed. I took this class to the computer lab on a Friday and played addition and subtraction games for 47 minutes. That night at our football game, I had 4 students come up to me and tell me how much fun they had in math class and that math used to be their worst subject, the one they hated the most and now it was their favorite. Friends were jealous; friends in honors classes were asking me if they could take my class. I just thought it was a good day in class. I hadn’t realized that that was the way those students learned the most, the way that engaged them the most. Instant gratification, short burst of learning, hidden from them because they were having fun, playing games.

Is it possible to make every day like that? No. It is like a tolerance for drugs. Give them a day of fun; you need to top it the next time and the next time. But engaging them in this matter 2 or 3 times a week might just do the trick.