Building bridges

Dear all,

This week quite a few of my own myths regarding technology were challenged. The first one of them is that we should not consider ourselves hopelessly less competent in any way than our students. In our forum discussion the empowering notion came up of the teachers still having the key to developing our students' literacy and intellectual skills. And I think there is nothing bad about learning from our students in the process.

There may be such a thing as digital natives and digital immigrants, as M. Prensky defined it, but there are different shades of grey in between. I invite you to look at the extended version of the initial conceptualization and see where you stand. I like to think of myself as a bridge, an image that for me is both flattering and realistic. It is by no means an easy position, as combining the best of both worlds requires a lot of hard work, bold guessing, questioning the obvious and many puzzled looks and raised eyebrows on both shores.

Another set of assumptions that I had been nourishing is that, even at the undergraduate level, students need to be guided and told what to do, shown where to look. Having reviewed just a small portion of skills websites provided by our class this week, I came to realize that a lot of them (especially the drills) can be nicely organized as a self-access module within the course for students' individual work. To have to analyze a few web sources in terms of level, age and application was another carefully chose task Sandra and Deborah invited us to do, as they pushed us from merely liking/disliking the website towards evaluating it, imagining how it would work in a concrete class. Another step forward toward the insight needed for picking what is most appropriate at any given moment, if appropriate at all, and feeling more free to combine different sources to support various skills.

The two articles we extensively discussed in forum further consolidated my previous belief into the need for careful planning (L. Miller) and the changing nature of technological trends (D. Hoopingarner). It is the bigger picture that can be extremely useful when making choices how to use the technology, as whether to use it or not does not seem to be an issue any longer. Having Sueanne on board was particularly beneficial in developing this critical outlook and creating an awareness we are not alone in experiencing problems using technology. And they say it if can go wrong, it will go wrong. We have to be aware of that, and never fully rely on technology only, as Ahmed Khattab points out. That means backing up students' work, for instance. I appreciate Ahmed's comment on handwriting – the forgotten skill. With all the downloadable and printable options and digital assistants, one does not feel the need to write anything down. Yet, so many of my own brilliant ideas were generated in the process of trying to jot something down on paper. Isn't the same thing happening to reading as well, a skill cherished in the B.G. (Before Google) era, with all due respect to the digital archives the Web is providing.

Congratulations to all of us, we have been working so hard and learning so much. Thank you for your honesty and appreciation, Gaby, thank you for sharing your feelings of ‘excitement, challenges, hope, aspiration, despondence, inspiration and motivation’, Md. Mahamud Hasan. I will keep it in mind next time I feel overwhelmed.

Best regards,

Andreja


P.S. See how you feel about the abundance of issues this video and its title raises!