Kidz+these+Days

Kids these days are very different from when I was in middle and high school. My freshman year of high school, I had a pager that way bigger than most cell phones are these days, and I was way ahead of the game in terms of technology. Now, it seems like every single one of my 10 and 11 year old sixth graders has a cell phone, not to mention an I-Pod and probably a laptop at home. Its a new age, its a new type of student. My teachers used laser disks and overheads. Teachers today use MP3s and doc projectors.

So how do we, as teachers of today, connect to our students when the technology used when we were in school is obsolete? My only answer is that we need to learn. In my opinion, it is just as important for teachers to continue to learn new ideas and methods as it is for us to teach our students. Our classroom should always be a learner-centered environment. Who's to say that we can't also be learners ourselves?

Providing students with opportunities to work with the technology they use in their everyday lives is a great way to draw them in. My cooperating teacher and I recently dowloaded the voice of someone reading the book that our students are reading in cooperative groups in class. Students are able to download this reading from the computers in class onto their MP3 players. This way, they can listen to the story and read along, drastically improving their comprehension. One thing to note is that I work in a school that is predominantly upper-middle class, white suburban kids. As I mentoned before, just about every student owns a cell phone, I-Pod, and a computer at home. The methods used in my current classroom would not work in an area where students were not as privelaged. That being said, I think the most important thing to remember is to always keep up with your kids; always be in their world. Find out about what students are doing after school, what activities they like, what technology they are using. Once you know what they're doing, you have a great start into finding a way to pull them in, to relate to them on a whole different level.