Visitors and Residents
Last year Dr. Doug Fisher presented to the two classes of
Secondary Literacy that I was teaching. During his presentation he showed a video clip
of one of his colleagues teaching to help demonstrate a particular
concept. In the video (this was not the
main point of the clip), the teacher texts one of his contacts to get
clarification on a piece of information, and within a couple of minutes the
teacher had a response. In the room in
which we sat there was an audible gasp that a teacher was actually texting in
class, in front of the class, and on video.
After the video clip was over and Dr. Fisher was about to continue his
talk, hands went up and the next few minutes were devoted to talking about the
texting teacher. Dr. Fisher’s reaction
was somewhat surprised that people wanted to talk about that teacher and then quickly acknowledged that some schools still
live in an “era of prohibition.” I remember thinking at the time, “neat,
the teacher has a very current technological tool and he is using it.” I did not see anything wrong with it. Dr. Fisher concluded that portion of the talk
(because I would imagine that he wanted to move on) by saying, “21st
century learning is 10% over already, and some schools are still not letting
our students use 21st century tools.” It was at this point that my views about
using cell phones and smart phones in the classroom changed.
I thought about Dr. Fisher’s presentation as I was watching
the video Visitors and Residents featuring Dr. White. According to Dr. White, I would be a visitor-
I use the internet as a tool, but I am a very frequent visitor, to the point
that I pretty much have internet capability with me at all times, whether it be by
using my iphone, my ipad or being on a computer. I am such a frequent visitor that there are
certain tasks that I do not even think about which type of tool I am going to
use, it is automatically an online tool.
Banking-check. Paying bills-
check, buying airline tickets- check, want to go to a movie?- check, the family
calendar- all online, a store that offers
to send me my receipt via email- absolutely. Maybe I am like a snowbird resident.
I particularly liked Dr. White’s example of a visitor being
characterized as one that can be very competent in using technology, but not
having a large web presence. I think this
is more of who I am online. I use Facebook
to keep up with friends, but I do not post very often, and I do not have many
online friends. My Facebook page reflects
who I am in real life- a very private person with a close group of friends. In fact, I view Facebook as a tool- I go “there”
with a purpose and often feel guilty if I spend too much time just “wandering around.”
As for the 21st tools that some of our students
are not permitted to use in the educational setting, I would really like our
learning to be reciprocal. I would very
much like to learn about how they live on the internet and how they use
it. And as I create more of a web
presence through the different social media tools that are being shown to us, I
would like to teach students to be more targeted and competent with their use.
