Martin Levins
Prensky is well known, probably most famous for his "digital native" and "digital immigrant" labels for kids and adults respectively, and for his position on gaming as a learning environment.
He asks "do we need schools?" and the audience response system gives us that 66% say yes, 8% no and 26% maybe.
Now, is that because of the "helping kids learn", or is it to keep kids safe so that parents can work (compulsory education)?
He discriminates between at-school and after-school learning, where the at-school is pushed onto kids, and the after-school is pulled
He claims that more and more people are now saying that we don't need school (despite the numbers in the poll at the beginning!), and asks what can we offer that they can't get "after-school".
"Motivation is the reason why the kids should stay in school" - the people factor.
Prensky draws the comparison between schools and prison and there is something here isn't there? Rooms that have doors with little windows in them so you can see inside, references to classrooms that are in "block C", bells that prompt a mass exodus from one section of the building to another.
He moves on, to change, with a perfect storm of change continuing to accelerate.
"How many changes have you seen in the way that you do banking, purchasing and so forth?
Various indicators: capacity of computers as an example, with today's mobile phones a billion times more than the first computer, showing a video from groenbrothers.com parodying the multifunction device yet teasing us with the question "why can't that sort of thing happen"
He makes the point that kids are not only used to change, but crave it. I don't agree here as we all know kids who hate change.
There's a similarity here with the digital native thing: I don't believe kids are necessarily "better" than the immigrants adults which is how this classification is often used.
Aha -he now says that people misinterpret the digital native thing, pointing to the attitude rather than some sort of built-in knowledge
He talks about "not going to the internet first" as an example of the "accent" of the digital immigrant, yet I experience daily kids who do the same thing.
Some more points here: Digital Immigrants assume real life only exists offline, don't naturally share information and assume that there is only one way to learn.
When he had kids and teachers rank their needs for learning, both agreed on 1:1 computers, but teachers wanted support and smaller classes, kids wanted openness and peer teaching and unblocked internet.
He brings up a list of "10 things kids want" which include:
97% of the audience claim that passion, not discipline is better as a motivator for kids
If you believe this, what do you do? "Passion based learning" (similar to that done at TAS) becoming more popular in the literature. So, do we know what our students' passions are? The survey says 0-20%. Is this just because we don't ask?
I've noticed that Westin Hotels nametags worn by associates have their name, the Westin logo, then a second line "My passion" which I've seen as food, travel, acting, and so forth, but there are others. The manager of the Westin in Las Vegas had "my child" as her passion. Maybe we need nametags on day one of a class that have this under their name.
He discriminates between nouns (facebook, email, twitter) and verbs(presenting, communicating) and asks us to think of the best way to present, concentrating on the verb and not worry about the noun.
His new book (surprise) is about partnering: like Einstein, creating an environment in which students can learn and changing the role of teachers from "ruler" to coach, from sage on the stage to guide on the side (are paisley shirts back in fashion?).
The survey says that most are skewed towards totally telling the kids, rather than totally partnering.
Teachers as farmers: providing conditions for growth - education leaders need to be the farmers' union bringing their members along from repetitive tilling and other old, unproductive practices.
He finishes with the claim that technology's role is to support the partnering between teachers and kids, stating that an infusion of technology into traditional practices actually hinders learning.
So how to encourage partnering?
It's simple: share the work. Let kids use the technology and do that well, and we add rigour, contextualise.
To illustrate the point of letting students go he asks the audience to take out their mobiles and answer "what is steganography?" but you couldn't play if you already knew (blast)
Have some courage: feel the fear of change and do it anyway.
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