Educational Leadership - February 2011

Demonstration projects around the United States have found that once teachers relegate much of the content dissemination to technology, they can spend class time more productively— helping students analyze, synthesize, and assimilate material (Johnson, Smith, Levine, & Haywood, 2010; Project Tomorrow, 2010). After all, isn’t this the most effective use of class time and teacher talent?

For example, suppose you want your students to watch and discuss Act I of Hamlet. Instead of showing the video in class, you might have them watch it on You Tube as a homework assignment. Not only will they be engaged in a modality they use constantly, but they will also be able to access the video 24/7—they can watch and rewatch it on their own schedule. After they view the video once, you can use class time to help them deconstruct Act I and then send them back to watch it again—which they are more likely to do than if you send them back to reread the text.

It appears that many children and
teens spend nearly all their waking
hours using media and technology.

Leading Education
into the Future

Technology is all about engagement. Watching the intense looks on our children’s and teens’ faces as they play video games, text all day long, Skype, Facebook, watch You Tube videos, and juggle a dozen websites at a time, we can clearly see that they are engaged.

The iGeneration is immersed in technology. Their tech world is open 24/7. Now, we need to take advantage of their love of technology to refocus education. In doing so, we’ll not only get students more involved in learning, but also free up classroom time to help them make meaning of the wealth of information that surrounds them. EL

References

Coupland, D. (1991). Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Levine, A., & Haywood, K. (2010). 2010 Horizon report: K– 12 edition. Austin, TX: New Media Consortium.

Lenhart, A., Ling, R., Campbell, S., &
Purcell, K. (2010). Teens and mobile
phones. Retrieved from Pew Research Cen-
ter’s Internet and American Life Project
at www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/
Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts,
D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the
lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. Retrieved from
Kaiser Family Foundation at www.kff.org/
entmedia/upload/8010.pdf
Strauss, W., & Howe, N. (1991). Genera-
tions: The history of America’s future, 1584–
2069. New York: William Morrow.

Larry D. Rosen is professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills; LROSEN@csudh.edu. His two most recent books are Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).