In the sixteen years that I have been teaching, the idea of my students being digital natives and that I am not, has been brought to my attention several times. The thing is that when it’s brought up it seems to make a lot of sense. Only when I look more closely at the lack of evidence to support changes in students brains or the actual way they learn, do I start to think that maybe I’m using anecdotal “evidence” to support a belief I am predisposed to. I mean, kids today are different right?

In the classroom, one of the things that has stood out to me as I have taught more technology, is that just because children are born with technology in their hands these days, it doesn’t mean they know how to use it or learn from it. Teaching kids how to use different apps or even how to actually find what they need on Google (high school students!) has shown me that the skills required for these “digital natives” to navigate today’s world are the same ones I needed to navigate 1991. Critical Thinking, communication, collaboration – 21^st century skills are what they need and while some of the delivery methods have changed, the need for them has not.

We do not live in a black and white world and we don’t need to teach in black and white ways – tech vs. no tech. We need to take the things that have always been important to education and use technology to enhance the learning of today’s students. Sometimes that may mean using games like Minecraft to help students with history, literacy, and writing (http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/09/28/for-the-hesitant-teacher-leveraging-the-power-of-minecraft/), but at other times it means using an online dictionary, a thesaurus, or other classic tools that haven’t really changed but are just available in different forms.

In his blog for the Boise State Edtech 537 class, Michael K. Barbour summarizes some readings on this topic (https://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/edtech537-examining-generational-differences-3/). This summary ends with the idea that, “the only thing that can be said about today’s student, based upon reliable and valid research, is that they are more narcissistic than any previous generation.” With that in mind it’s even more important to help ours students learn to use technology in a way that helps them critically think about the world around them. They need to know and understand that there is truth that exists outside of their own experience. Kids who have grown up in this tech filled world may know how to work the tech and push the buttons but they still have the same learning needs as the generations before them. They need to think critically, be able to communicate, and collaborate with others. As a teacher, I hope I’m teaching them how to use tech to do that.