Again Prensky present an “in-your-face” view of education and the role of technology today. I buy into what he is getting at with the article but with some reservation. He presents a lot of ideal situations void of financial restraints and accountability from administrators. I would agree that keeping the ideal situation in front of us allows us to strive towards that level.
An interesting point Prensky makes that resonated with me was the idea of flexible learning groups. I almost got the point he would favor homogenous grouping in a virtual world. That would definitely be a different educational environment. I could potential see kids logging into to their virtual worlds (like Second Life) and go to schoolhouse where students of similar interests or abilities would be their classmates. Okay we getting closer to the Jetsons’ style of education.
I do feel that children are exposed to during the school day might be considered throw away, not useful. Inherently I think teachers want to constantly provide those meaningful education situations. Do I think playing games is one way of achieving it? Yes, but it would be no different than a calculator or other manipulatives might play. I think about all of the problem solving and logic skills children explore when they are building levels in the game SuperTux or programming with Logo and can justify it in an educational situation. These simulators or game-playing activities still need to be balanced with more traditional approaches in order to best fully educate.
I like the idea of using the students as a sounding board for digital content/activities/assessment tools. In a sense this is no different than planning backwards. The key is having quality essential questions for the digital tools to explore. Wouldn’t that be an interesting curriculum planning model? You definitely get student ownership of their education!
Are we on the verge of a digital revolution in public education? Prensky would definitely say yes! I’m still optimistic that educators will get it. Think back 4 years ago when the laptops started in middle schools. It wasn’t pretty at first but educators got it and started being innovative and engaging and now high schoolers are suffering withdrawls if they don’t have the same opportunities as they did in middle school.
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I fully agree with your comments on Prensky being “in your face”. He like a lot of people seem to go over board when trying to convince people of what he believes is the “right” thing to do in education. His points are very important to consider, and hopefully we as teachers can move closer to his way of thinking, but it is going to take a lot of support from the community, and government.