Allow me to write for a moment or so about something that
has been bugging me for the past few weeks. It’s something that Felicia mentions in this blog post and
something that was reinforced when I read this. And it’s something that I’ve definitely touched upon before.
I am petrified that technology is actually helping us to
create dependent learners.
There. I said
it. Disagree with me, please! Tell me I’m wrong because I want to be.
We are using the internet to help children get answers, not
find them, as Felicia writes.
Isn’t that also what we’re asked to do in the digital story project? Dependent learners are given a list of
resources that hold their hand through the process. Independent learners are given an objective or a task and
then they do it. Oh, you don’t
know how to use iMovie? Figure it
out by trial-and-error and playing around with it for yourself. That, I think, is why my generation and
the generations that have followed find tech so intuitive. We figured it out for ourselves. Nobody taught us. Our parents, by contrast, have to be
told how to do something and they don’t actually LEARN it – they LEARN to ask
us. I SAY NO! What my mom needs to
learn is how to find the answer…NOT GET THE ANSWER! Instead of calling me or my
brother, she needs to take on the inquiry task herself. If she did, she would be much more
likely to remember the answer…even if it takes longer to FIND it than to GET
it. If you can’t figure out how to
do something on iMovie, then find a tutorial yourself. Ask the internet yourself.
Like I said, this was reinforced when I read this. Did anyone else notice that about HALF
the sites were no longer available?
That’s the internet for you, folks! That’s why it’s important not to be GIVEN resources, but to
be comfortable FINDING them. There
will always be something to replace what goes missing, but if you can’t find
it, it won’t help you. So I say,
instead of telling your fourth-graders to get answers on a certain website,
give them an objective/task (webquest) and have them do independent
research. Not only are they
discovering content, they are learning how to learn. That’s as authentic and independent as it gets. And then they won’t shut down when
their go-to website does.
Ciao!
