Interactivity: The Key to Reaching Digital Natives

Keeping Up with Digital Natives - Part V
Interactivity: The Key to Reaching Digital Natives 

This is the fifth installment of my series on digital natives and how we can meet their needs in the classroom.

After much careful consideration and thoughtful observation, I have come to this conclusion: for a digital native there is a direct correlation between the interactivity of his/her classroom experience and the impact of the classroom experience on the digital native.  Furthermore, the correlation between the two becomes stronger when the interactivity involves technology.  Consider these points:

• One of the first lessons new teachers learn is to call on students and ask them questions directly in order to keep them engaged: interactivity.
• My daughter has always loved Dora the Explorer because the TV asks her for input and direction.  She perceives that her input affects what happens on the screen:interactivity.
• My son has always loved video games because he has influence over the characters, the players, the civilizations, etc.  His actions and reactions in a dynamic scenario influence the direction the game goes: interactivity.
• Senior level students in our dual credit math class do their homework and tests on laptops.  They spend more time on these assignments than they ever have before but they don't even notice.  As they answer questions, the computer gives instant feedback.  Even silly phrases such as "Fantastic" and "Stupendous" make the students excited: interactivity.
• Senior English students in our English classes scour their lit books for quotes that describe them.  Using a variety of digital media, the students create presentations.  The students use Activboards to give the presentations in class.  The class, using a rubric provided by the teacher, use Activotes to grade the presentations on a number of things (correct MLA citations, accuracy of quotes relative to the presenter's personality, etc.) that require critical thinking and analysis.  Presenter and audience are fully engaged start to finish: interactivity.
• Students in history classes at my last school begged for review days in history classes because their history teacher used a powerpoint version of Jeopardy for exam reviews: interactivity.

Interactivity directly addresses a number of our digital natives' needs.  First, interactivity allows digital natives to collaborate and to be social.  The insane popularity of social networks, blogs, wikis and MMOG (massive multiplayer online games) is evidence that digital natives crave contact (interaction) with others even if that contact is digital.  Digital natives thrive when placed in groups and when given assignments, projects and challenges requiring collaboration.  It's a good thing, too, because the future for which we are trying to prepare digital natives will require more collaboration, especially digital collaboration (email, videoconferencing, etc.), than ever before.

Second, interactivity provides allows digital natives to receive feedback quickly and continuously.  Digital natives will not tolerate dial-up Internet because they want instant connectivity.  Digital natives do not write letters because they want to send and receive communications instantly.  Digital natives do not shop for CDs at the mall because they want mp3 downloads in seconds.  Do not misunderstand this to mean that digital natives have short attention spans.  That simply isn't true.  Digital natives will spend hours browsing online, playing video games, writing software, blogging, creating videos, using IM or sending texts, and even doing homework on laptops with interactive software.  Rather, the digital natives' desire for quick feedback is more likely a reflection of the world in which they live, the world of instant downloads and rapid-fire video games.

Third, interactivity provides opportunities for digital natives to be creative.  Digital natives not only are creative (perhaps by nature) but also crave outlets for their creativity.  If you have doubts, check out some of the machinima videos on youtube, photos on Photobucket, money-making schemes on ebay, websites, organizations and more, all created by digital natives.  Games such as the Sims series, World of Warcraft, even 1st-person shooter games, require creativity to master.  Teachers who require students to be creative, whether with writing assignments or with digital presentations, will engage and challenge their students more than those who simply require the organization and memorization of data.

An ancient Chinese proverb says, "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day.  Teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime."  Do you think that ancient Chinese fisherman simply wrote instructions for the hungry guy? No.  Interactive teaching was the key.  Do you think simply giving a digital native an engineering text will effectively teach engineering concepts?  No.  How about hands-on interactive engineering labs combined with the interactivity of the Infinity Project, all overseen by a master teacher?  You better believe it.

Here is my twofold challenge to the next generation of educational leaders: First, find a way to make your classrooms, as well as your out-of-school assessments and projects, as interactive as possible.  Second, couple the interactivity with technology.  This recipe will produce better teachers, better students and, ultimately, graduates prepared to enter a rapidly-changing digital future.

Born Digital - Understanding the first generation of digital natives: A Review

Keeping Up with Digital Natives - Part IIII 
Born Digital - Understanding the first generation of digital natives: A Review

This is the fourth installment of my series on digital natives and how we can meet their needs in the classroom.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently read Born Digital by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. The book is a product of joint research between the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen.

Born Digital paints a very clear portrait of the digital native. Palfrey and Gasser give fascinatng insight into the often-puzzling psyche of the digital natives now occupying virtually all the desks and tables in our classrooms. As an educator who feels pretty in touch with the 500+ digital natives amongst whom I walk on a daily basis, much of the information in the book validated feelings I had about digital natives already. The chapters dealing with digital natives as pirates, as creators, as learners and as innovators are especially relevant for me and my role as an educational leader. These chapters should be required reading for educational leaders and for teachers alike. While the book does not present teaching strategies, bright and creative teachers and administrators can use the information in Born Digital to tailor new and engaging lessons, courses and the like to meet the rapidly-changing needs of our digital native students.

The entire work, though, should be on the reading list of parents, especially those who are not technologically savvy and who may not be in touch with their children's digital side. Born Digital explains not only why digital natives desire so much time on the computer, the Internet, the cell phones and the video game console, but also what needs these pieces of technology fill for the digital natives. Furthermore, the book gives invaluable insight into what digital natives are doing and where they're going online. If parents have questions about things like Facebook, MySpace, World of Warcraft and other online attractions, Born Digital is a great place to get some answers.
Furthermore, Born Digital should alarm (and justifiably so) parents who have no concept of how freely their digital native children exchange and reveal personal information and photos, how frequently they communicate with strangers and how often they engage in questionable, if not illegal, activity online without thinking about the long-term consequences of their actions. This book will be an eye-opener for the vast majority of parents who will take the time to read the manuscript.

I highly recommend Born Digital for educators and I say that Born Digital is a must for parents. I also recommend browsing the website for the Digital Native Project.

If you have read Born Digital, I welcome a discussion about any or all of the book.

How Digital Immigrants Weathered the Storm Called Gustav

Keeping Up with Digital Natives - Part III
How Digital Immigrants Weathered the Storm Called Gustav 

This is the third installment of my series on digital natives and how we can meet their needs in the classroom (although this impromptu post has less to do with the classroom and more to do with how educational leaders can learn a lesson from our digital native students).

When I began this series on digital natives, I had no plans for this post.  Gustav, however, changed that.  My school is in Baton Rouge and, unless you have been living in an information vacuum, you know that Hurricane Gustav pounded Baton Rouge on September 1.  Almost a week later, tens of thousands of households (in East Baton Rouge Parish alone) remain without electricity.  Gustav severely crippled Baton Rouge and much of South Louisiana. 

As Gustav roared through Baton Rouge, the power for virtually the entire city went down.  As if that weren't bad enough, voice communications via phones went down as many telephone lines went down with the power lines.  With no power and no phones, communications in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area almost ceased to exist.  To further complicate matters, cell phone service was spotty at best.  Those cell channels that remained in service were overloaded with both incoming and outgoing calls.  Baton Rouge also faced an email crisis because so many Baton Rouge residents use local email providers and the servers in town were without power.  Thus begins the case study about how Gustav forced a campus of digital immigrants to live as digital natives, at least for a little while.

As the division head for grades 9 through 12, my responsibility during a crisis such as Gustav is to gather and disseminate information as quickly and accurately as possible.  To do that, though, my headmaster and the other two division heads, along with several other key administrators, had to be on the same page regarding information sent to our stakeholders.  Additionally, nearly 50 faculty and staff, from my division alone, waited in the silent darkness for information regarding the restart of school. Without email or phone service (cell or land lines), we took a page from the digital native handbook: we used texts (SMS).

Text messages, or Short Message Service, worked when cell phone voice service and land line phone service often did not.  While cell phone calls travel over voice channels, texts travel in small data packets over control channels.  Because texts are so small, they usually do not overload the control channels and, therefore, texting often works when calls don't.

After the administration coordinated information and strategies via text messages, we transmitted information to our faculty and staff using texts.  Some of the texts we sent manually and some we sent via broadcasts created with software.  Once the faculty realized that texting worked even when calling did not, the texts began to fly through the airwaves over Baton Rouge like never before.  Faculty and staff not only received information from us but also relayed information and questions to us and to each other.  In the past week alone, I sent and received hundreds of texts (no exaggeration) all related to school business.  For the past week, I communicated with my entire division and essentially managed my faculty from my phone.  I should note, though, that communication of this kind would have been impossible had I not programmed my phone with the cell numbers of everyone in my division ahead of time.  Based on our success with SMS communication, I recommend that administrators be prepared to use SMS technology to communicate with faculty and other stakeholders in the event of a crisis such as Gustav.

Our digital native students would be proud of some members of our faculty who, quite honestly, may never have used texts despite owning cell phones for years.  Remember, while digital immigrants use cell phones primarily for talking, digital natives use cell phones primarily for texting.  If you don't believe me, ask a digital native.

BTW (that means "by the way" for all you digital immigrants out there), have you noticed that your texts are limited to 160 characters?  That number was decided on over twenty years ago and was based on 7-bit characters in the English language; 160 7-bit characters limits the messages to very small pieces of information.  If you were to text in Arabic, Russian, Chinese or several other languages whose characters are 16-bit characters, your texts would be limited to 70 characters.  I thought some of you would appreciate that bit of nearly-useless information.