Stacy_Palkovics_Web20

I have been teaching for 11 years and each year I am both amazed and scared by all of the technological things the Net Generation can do. The technology skills that these students possess is phenominal and at times really frightening. These "virtual learners" are surrounded by technology and are frankly lost without it. Taking a computer or a cell phone away from a student is the end of the world. They feel empty and confused without these devices because they are so dependent on them. I am all for using these Web 2.0 tools in the classroom as long as teachers and administrators can continue ot monitor the things the students can do on them. We all know that the educational benenfits are countless.

I think for us veteran teachers who are not used to all of the fancy things the Net Generation can do, it is a good idea for us to learn fast. So many "older" teachers are unwilling to step out of the box and cross over into the N Generation way of thinking. This is going to be crucial in the next few years. Doing this will help teachers build stronger relationships with their students. If we don't jump on board and learn what they are doing with technology and what they are thinking, we are going to be left behind and lose a lot of our students.

One of the major concerns I have with allowing students to use technology and network with each other in the classroom is the fact that they often do inappropriate things and go to inappropriate sites. In a perfect world, teachers should be monitoring the students computers all the time, but this gets very difficult to do when you have a class of 30 plus students. That is why so many blocks and filters are put on the school laptops and this often hinders a lot of the things we are able to do in the classroom. As an administrator and a teacher, I think these blocks are necessary; especially in high school. High school students often like to push the limit as often as they can and try to get away with as much as possible. They are very clever and sometimes find ways around the blocks and filters. That is why these tools must be monitored and rules and regulations must be set. As an English teacher, another concern that I have with technology is all the texting, twittering and social networking the students do. When the students are texting, Myspacing and Facebooking, they type and talk in lingo and pay no attention to grammar and proper English. This is a problem because they bring this into the classroom and onto their papers. It is becoming a huge epidemic and a concern for all SOL teachers. I do think that rules and regulations are the key to managing these issues.

My favorite quote from this article is " we must continue to find ways to give N- Generation students more control over their learning environments by allowing them to build social networks within and across learning experiences, helping them to culitvate the research and writing skills that they have developed online and packaging course content in ways that match their learning styles and optimize their strengths." This is key because the world wide web and technology is not going away and as teachers, administrators, parents and community members we are going to have to learn how to adapt and overcome to the world of tools and technology.