Today I was reading several articles about the way learners have changed. One article appropriately called the current crop of learners The Net Generation. People complain about the lack of attention span among The Net Generation. But doesn’t everyone have a short attention span when they find something boring? One of my colleagues once said to me, in a rant “They are here to LEARN, not have FUN!” As if “fun” were a four letter word. I don’t think learning and fun are mutually exclusive. To the contrary. I think people learn best when they are having fun. Technology is part of The Net Generation’s culture. In most of America’s classrooms, we are asking this generation to check their culture at the door and step back into the world of sage on the stage unilaterally dispensing what is true.
Reflecting on the movies about great teachers I have seen “Stand and Deliver”, “Freedom Writers” and others, the one constant is that the teacher worked to the point of exhaustion. Teaching is not easy. It’s a shame that our professional ball players are paid more in a day than teachers make for a whole year. But that’s another issue. What if teachers started to make small efforts towards reaching out to the digital learner? What might that effort look like? How can teachers reach across the digital divide without becoming overwhelmed?
