Your Students' Digital Smarts

Vicki Davis uses digital medias to help her students 'learn to learn'. Saying that by knowing her students' strenghts and interests, she can customize the projects they have to do. That way, students feel more like participating and developing programs with their peers. Since every person has different strenghts, Vicki Davis asks them to go in front of the class and act as a teacher to show his colleagues how to do certain things. If these projects were only done with sheets of paper and a pen, she would lose their attention very quickly. That way of teaching develops the cooperative skills of students.

Helping each other in order to attain a specific goal can be perceive as empowerment. When every student of the class works cooperatively to achieve a common task, it can be done very easily, quickly and well done. When the project is finished and posted on the web, students can see the final presentation of their work and can only be eager to accomplish a new project. Empowerment can easily be done at school by doing any project needing digital medias. Even if it can be a little harder at home, it is possible if parents let their child showing them how tyo do things on the computer. As Vicki Davis says:'' You don't have to master a subject to be able to teach it''.

I think it is important for kids to collaborate with others around the world since they become a lot more open-minded and discover other cultures and ways of seeing and doing things. In fact, it is one of the funniest ways to learn a language, just as e-tandems. It is very favorable to them because it develops their interactive and social skills and they can feel like they're becoming a part of the society.

As an ESL teacher, agood way to promote collaboration  between my students and others around the world is to assign projects between my school and an English-speaking school from Canada. That way, each party will have the opportunity to learn a new language while discovering how to use digital medias. There are also e-tandems which are a good way to promote collaboration between students from here and foreign ones.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-teachers-vicki-davis-video

Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching

Henry Jenkins mainly says that medias are a new way for students to learn and that teachers, schools and schoolboards have to get along with it. A lot of schools don't have access to sites like Youtube because there can be presence of offensive content but they are minimal. It is such a useful tool when it comes to gather information about a specific subject. Teachers are accustomed to be the experts with whom students ask questions but with technology, there is a big chance that it might be the students' role and that frightens teachers. Poor students don't have the chance to benefit from the new medias at home so they look forward to go at school to use them.  New medias are a great way for learners to improve their social skills and to act as full participants in the new society. Teachers will have to change their way of teaching because now, with medias, they will have to let the kids share their technology knowledge with the class because everyone has his strenghts.

Schools are limiting the kids' access to digital tool by blocking a lot of useful sites because there can be offensive content in it but I am sure that they already saw a lot of things worse than that. By doing that, they close the door to useful information. Since poorer kids only have access to new technologies at school, it is sad to see that they see the browsing possibilities being restrained. the new generation of kids is very at ease with technologies so we have to let them be the experts in this so they can share their knowledge with us (as teachers) as well as the other kids.

I don't think that schools are ready to give up control to kids and families since a lot of schools think that background knowledge has not its place at school meaning that teachers have the absolute knowledge. I think it is a non-sense and that we, as future teachers, have to give more opportunities to students so they can use their strenghts to profit the class and so that it helps the class achieve its goals. Authorship is now taking a lot of place in the medias' society but we have less power on it than before. The best way to teach it to kids would be to spend 1 course talking about it and showing examples. This course should be given before the class starts using computers for a project or to gather information or etc.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-henry-jenkins-media-video

How Teachers Collaborate Online and in School

The Vail School District in southern Arizona created a collaborative Wiki where they can put lesson plans they created and that their students enjoyed. That way, other teachers from the school can use them and adapt it to their class. Digitizing it helps teacher create new projects and can also give them ideas. They can even extend their collaborative Wiki so that other school districts can use them and add their own lesson plans. It is a good thing for students too because if their teacher uses these lesson plans, they can be sure that it'll be a fun course.

As (Kovacic & al., 2007) article says, the use of Wikis is a useful and innovative way of enriching the learning environment of students. This citation applies well tothe video about the Vail School District. In fact, I think that, by using other teachers' lesson plans, a teacher can vary his way of teaching and that way, students experience new learning strategies and get bored less quickly. Wikis are also an Internet-based alternative to the traditional teachings on the blackboard. It is a fun and interactive way of teaching and students need that.

A good thing about Wikis is that everyone can contribute to them and that it cannot be spammed because you can retrace the person that shared the post. These teachers could also use a brainstorming Wiki which they can use to brainstorm ideas for a project or assignment (Sze, 2008). They can even use it to share comments about the lesson plans they borrowed from other teachers.

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differntiated-instruction-budget-resource-collaboration-video

Big Thinkers: Howard Gardner on Digital Youth

It is true that young people using digital medias encounter ethical issues such as the sense of identity, privacy and credibility for example, which I think they shouldn't face because they are still too young to really think about it.

But there are a lot of advantages related to these medias like the fact that when they enter this digital world, they feel like they're becoming a member of a sort of community. It also provides an easy access to the world's information  and by that, young people become aware of others and develop their social skills.

There are some disadvantages too, they can write under various masks without anybody knowing who they really are and that can give them the idea to write things that can offend people. Another disadvantage is the fact that the role of the teacher changes a little bit and becomes more a coach than a guide of culture and knowledge. When it comes to ethical issues, kids don't think they have to apply ethics but will have to when they will be older and I agree with because I have already been a kid.

In conclusion, digital medias are great tools for kids but they still have to be improved especially regarding the ethical issues. Howard Gardner's video made me open my eyes on what the digital medias can do for us.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-howard-gardner-video