September Article Review - Technology, Fair Use, and Plagiarism

This month’s reading about Fair Use, plagiarism, and technology had me pondering one point – teacher responsibility and flexibility. As teachers, we are not only expected to stay current with our knowledge of all things in our subject area, but we are also expected to stay on top of current trends in pedagogy and technology. I am grateful for the Koehler and Mishra article that tied all three of those areas together. Somewhere deep down, I think I knew that all of the areas (pedagogy, technology, and content knowledge) all went hand-in-hand, but the article made it click. It just makes sense that all three of those ideas would have to work together – teachers are constantly taking ideas and asking ourselves: how would it best serve our children? How would that life lesson look in the classroom? And how can I incorporate some parallel learning that would get students involved in the process, since that’s how students think and learn now? According to the article “NCTE Definition of 21^st Century Literacies” students of the 21^st century need to know how to work with multiple media and think laterally and process multiple media. Students also need to be aware of the extreme ethical responsibilities that accompany an expanding amount of power to influence through the Web.  

There is also the underlying agreement that we are to keep up with our students and not only be able to relate to them, but also to be in tune with how they think, process, and ultimately learn. That’s a lot to keep track of, and this may seem like martyrizing the profession – but really, this is what we signed up for. We assumed this great responsibility when we decided to stand in front of young folks and attempt to teach them how to function in our ever-changing world. Students, parents, and communities trust us to be at the top of our game at all times. We promised to never stop learning and growing so that our students would always receive the best training in becoming a citizen and a life-long learner. 

It comes down to this – with new technology emerging fast than we can incorporate it in our classrooms, we have to be adaptable. Prensky’s article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” was incredibly interesting. His article discusses interactions that I see every day at our school: teachers who have become anywhere between indifferent or angry that students have seemingly no desire to sit and read a book or listen to lectures. Prensky discusses how students need fast-paced, interactive lesson-designs, but an older generation of teachers are attempting to make them focus on what they view as strengths. I hear this conversation replayed over and over again during staff meetings and during lunch breaks – teachers lamenting over the lost art of reading, writing, socializing in the good ol’ slow-paced days. I’ve often thought of this as problematic thinking, of going backwards – why force our students to learn in the past when they will not be using those skills in their future? 

Prensky’s article has pushed my troubled thoughts to the forefront of my mind now. He claims, “…the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language” (Prensky, 2001, p. 2). I can see two roads to this statement – one is that maybe this exchange from tech-savvy kids and socially-savvy adults could work as a great learning relationship for both parties. If each can see the value in the other, this could be a great environment. However, if either party is stringent and stubborn in their ways, this could be a very toxic learning relationship – especially if the stubborn party is the teacher. We should be the ones modeling the wonder and the want to learn about the digital environment – if teachers are out-right refusing because it’s new and strange and they’re uncomfortable, we are not only telling our students that they’re communication and world of social constructions are not valuable, but also that being stubborn and set in one’s ways is valuable. Isn’t part of our job to demonstrate the value of education, change, and being a life-long learner? 

This article has caused me to look at how I’m teaching my students. I immediately think of teaching grammar – the drill and kill of grammar will not work. It hasn’t worked for some time. One solution was to teach grammar solely through writing, but I was finding my students unable to grasp everything – the rules, the exceptions, the reason behind it all – so I went back to directly teaching grammar skills. This time however, I use games and interactive, quick lessons to drive information home that should have been memorized years ago. Competition, quick bits of information, use of cell phones, and real-world application has aided in making these fundamental rules stick. They are going to be judged by their writing and communication skills in their future careers – our students need to be able to learn in such a way that works for them to be successful. 

I’m walking away with this lesson from the article: teachers need to stop being critical of the way that our students’ brains have been hard-wired. It’s done – there’s no changing it – so we may as well get on board and start teaching in a way that our students will grasp and in which our students will flourish.Students and their futures are our responsibility. We are not shaping them to function in a world that no longer exists. We are shaping them for a world that may not yet exist. Teachers have to show students what an adaptable, responsible, life-long learner looks like.

 Koehler, M.J. & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1) 60-70. Retrieved from https://tldeunomaha.files.wordpress.com/
NCTE. (2014). NCTE definition 21st century literacies. NCTE Position Statement. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentdefinition
Prensky, Marc. (2001). Digital immigrants, digital natives. On The Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing

**Can't get my works cited entries to have a hanging indent to work on the blog!