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February 2011

Educational Review For Parents

In the February 2011 edition of Educational Leadership, Larry D. Rosen shares information related to “Teaching the iGeneration." The article describes generational similarities and differences as it relates to technology and media.

Don Tapscott’s term --- the Net Generation --- describes those born in the 1980’s through the early 2000’s. This generation because of access to mobile technologies believes that if they conceive something, they should be able to make it happen. This is a very optimistic generation. Mr. Rosen shares an example, “If an app doesn’t exist for something they want to do on a smartphone, they just assume that nobody has created it yet and that it should be a piece of cake to do so.” He goes on to describe how he feels schools need to respond to this generation of mobile technology users. “The point is not to ‘teach with technology’ but to use technology to convey content more powerfully and efficiently.”

For most educators this means enormous amounts of curriculum content online in a variety of formats, which requires large amounts of time to research and develop into a lesson plan. Rosen suggests one possible solution to assisting teachers is the creation of a knowledge broker --- someone who helps you identify online resources, including audio and video pieces that can help bring the material to life for students. Don’t be surprised that your son or daughter or even you may be asked to be a knowledge broker in the future.

Mr. Maugel writes a monthly review of materials he has found from journals, magazines, or other articles that may be of interest to parents.