Digital Natives are all around us. They populate our college courses and use the newest mobile technologies to communicate, collaborate, create and share information on social media sites. There is, however, often a disconnection on their path to learning. Quite often we find Digital Native students taught by Digital Immigrant professors (Prensky, 2001) who fear, dismiss or are unaware of the potential learning power of Web 2.0 technologies.
According to a recent study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010) teen and young adult use of social networking sites has exploded since 2006. Yet, most collegiate faculty will choose not to embrace a device that could greatly enhance their teaching prowess and, more importantly, assist the development of their students.
Digital Immigrant professors often believe that Digital Native students’ familiarity with social media software and cutting edge mobile technologies corresponds to a deep and critical use of Twitter, Facebook and blogs in research or coursework applications (Kumar, 2010). This double-edged facet both excites and scares faculty. If students are so familiar with social media, then they could use it to uncover new ways to research material. If students are so much more versed than faculty in the technology, then I, as a teacher, cannot teach them.
There is a solution to this problem. The use of an effective and basic social media tool in the higher education classroom can be a wonderful bridge between the cyber skills of students and the thoughtful lessons provided by professors. The answer is found in creating a blogging assignment.
In my Writing for the Media course, I adopted the creation of a blog as a new assignment. As a Digital Immigrant professor whose early professional and academic careers pre-dated the Internet, I was, at first, skeptical of introducing a technology-based exercise in which I held very little expertise. Deep down I knew that I needed to shelve my fear and learn as much about blogs as I could because it made sense to use web tools as a relational component of instruction. Besides, blogs are particularly well suited for a whole variety of courses. They can be used for writing essays, research, communication studies, visual art galleries, e-Portfolios and other impactful endeavors. And blogs make fantastic end-of-semester presentation forums.
Based upon my experience, I recommend a few essential steps for implementing a blog as a student-generated learning exercise. First, discover as much as you can about the appearance and basic functionality of blogs. You do not need to be an IT expert; however, you do need to have a good idea about how to create and update posts, and the overall maintenance. Second, find a free platform, such as Blogger or WordPress, to house the student blogs. This search will greatly assist the access and naming conditions for project work with very little hassle. Third, create your own site before you ask students to create theirs. Here is where you can get ahead of the curve, maintain an expert practitioner status and promote your confidence. This is my site here: http://massmediazone.blogspot.com/
These simple steps will assist your in learning the new language of blogs and the unique cultural qualities of social media. In time, you will be like every immigrant and learn to love your new land.
References:
Kumar, S. (2010). Teaching history with blogs for student engagement and critical use of digital media. Journal of Applied Computing, Vol. 6, No. 2: 69-76.
Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., and Zickuhr, K. (2010). Social media & mobile internet use among teens and young adults. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, Vol. 9, No. 5: 1-6.
Dr. David McCoy is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Digital Media at Ashland University.
This Post Has 8 Comments
You suggest looking at Blogger and WordPress to host your students' blogs. What about FERPA issues?
Once you've given your students command of a blog tool (and I prefer WP), they can take digital notes (text, images, audio) and post them via email (from various devices) to their blogs (private). A private blog would also be a great tool for study groups.
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How do you get a copy of the article (below) in english? I can only find an electronic copy in Portuguese (Brazil)
Kumar, S. (2010). Teaching history with blogs for student engagement and critical use of digital media. Journal of Applied Computing, Vol. 6, No. 2: 69-76.
Writing and maintaining a blog is a different skill and commands a different set of motivations as compared to other social media activities (most prevalent being the use of Facebook). Students may not be sufficiently 'intrinsically' motivated to write blogs. Other learning artefacts such as the good old MS Word document, collectively edited/worked on by students, or a Google Doc, could be better options. But it all depends on the learning objectives and contexts. I teach in an Asian context, with smaller classes, hence a variety of language skill levels , general academic ability, and motivations come into play. A more direct face to face feedback and collaborative mechanism works better here, I think.
http://amerkhan.wordpress.com/
Hello Dr. McCoy:
Thank you for an informative post.
One point struck me: Yet, most collegiate faculty will choose not to embrace a device that could greatly enhance their teaching prowess and, more importantly, assist the development of their students.
I’ve found that there is a difference between traditional or on-ground instructors and online instructors, when considering the application of your statement to faculty members. Online instructors (including myself) tend to embrace technological enhancements quicker than on-ground instructors and it may be simply a matter of having to learn to adapt to technology. Would you agree?
I teach courses on-ground and online, and I find that my experience with both environments works to my advantage. For example, I have implemented the use of blogs in my on-ground classes but not just as busy work, I’ve incorporated to demonstrate how it is used in the real world by businesses to connect with their customers.
You’ve mentioned Blogger and WordPress. Have you tried Glogster? I’ve found that students who want something a little more creative enjoy creating a glog.
Dr. J
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