This week, I got around to thinking about how this program will actually affect my career path, and what I'll be doing when we're all done here. This happy little bit of reflection was brought about by looking at Oovoo and comparing it to Blackboard Collaborate. In doing so, I really thought about what it would be like to teach a fully-online class, and whether that class would be connected to my school, or some other entity.
If I were to teach an online class, all of the tools we've been looking at are no longer a nice added extra- they're necessary. Getting kids to use things like Google Docs, Web 2.0 word processors, etc. would be the way it has to be. That's why I'm glad that it seems kids come around on technology a little bit more quickly than adults. In the last two weeks, I've been teaching two classes using technology. Last week, I taught my peers how to use social bookmarking and cloud storage. This week, I've been teaching 6th grade students how to use Movie Maker. It was interesting to see how they approached it differently.
Honestly, I feel Movie Maker is much tougher to use, but the kids took right to it. I demonstrated for about two minutes, then set them loose. They were very willing and able to troubleshoot on their own, and only had a few issues that needed direct assistance from me. The adults, on the other hand, got mad easily. If a program didn't do what they expected, that exasperated sigh came right out. The time between when the issue came up to the point where they gave up was very short with the adults, but happily quite long with my 6th graders.
I've mentioned before that I find the digital natives/digital immigrants metaphor a bit tired, but it seems kids really do approach technology differently. Maybe its just a comfort in making mistakes and fixing them- the same way my father can make touch-ups on a home-built cabinet days after I would have reduced it to firewood. Of course, it's not true of all kids, but if I am looking at a future where I'll be relying on these tools to be used effectively, at least I'm relying on a population willing to work with them.
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