The Digital Natives

After reading Marc Prensky's thought provoking "Digital Native's Digital Immigrants", I exerienced an "aha moment". Prensky believes that the current generation of students from kindergarten to university are fundamentally different from any other generation, not only in speech, styles and taste in music but more importantly in the way they think and learn. This generation of students Prensky refers to as the 'digital natives'. He stated that they were born surrounded and bombarded by technology on a daily basis. Due to this, their brains are wired differently from ours. According to Dr. Bruce Perry of Baylor University, different pathways for learning were developed due to enviroment in which they now live. They are able to engage in several activities at the same time, such as listening to music on an ipod, studying and texting or messaging all at the same time.

Prensky then described the rest of us as 'digital immigrants' due to the fact that we did not grow up in the digital age, we had to adapt and learn in order to survive and keep up. Yet some of us retain vestiges of our past. The digital immigrants can be seen printing documents for editing, rather than editing on screen, reading a manual first rather than assuming that the programme itself will teach how to use it.

Prensky insists that the biggest challenge facing the education system today is that our educators are immigrants in a digital world attempting to teach the digital natives. The natives engage in:

• parallel processing
• multi tasking
• prefer graphics before text
• and thrive on instant gratification and rewards.

The digital immigrants do not see much need for these skills and are still attempting to teach the natives using the same strategies that they grew up on. They also believe that since they cannot learn whilst listening to music or watching television that this will be the same for the natives.

Daily we are loosing our students to boredom. So unless the digital immigrants,( the educators) wake up and realize that their old teaching methods and strategies are rapidly becoming irrelevant, we will continue to widen the chasm between these two groups of dwellers.

Literacy, Youths and the Legal System.

Every year, over 2000 students in Trinidad and Tobago score below 30% in the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination. These students can be classified as "at risk" students who would have to engage in some sort of remediation programme or intervention at the secondary schools in which they are placed. These intervention programmes are crucial since studies have shown that there is a corelation between literacy levels and students' trajectory to success in life. Snow, Burns & Griffin (1998) stated that literacy is a key determinant of academic, social and economic success in life. It is also vital for one to be able to function adequately in today's society. What this means for us as teachers and future reading specialists, is that unless we stem the tide of students who are performing below minimum level, based on current statistics we are increasing the probability of over 700 or 35% of this cohort of students becoming deviants and falling into the hands of the law. According to O'Cummings, Bardack & Gonsoulin (2010), Marquin & Loeber (1996), research has shown that students with low academic achievement are two times more likely to become delinquents than high performing students. They also tend to have a higher absentee rate from school than their high achieving counter parts.

Studies have also shown that a large number of youths who are incarcerated are only marginally literate. The challenge that remains for all educators, is that we need to adopt appropriate strategies and educational policies to make school and learning relevant to the lives of our students. One avenue which can be used to reach our youths is through the use of technology in the classroom. If we can motivate them to stay in school, and can make learning meaningful and relevant to their lives, then we will be making some real progress in reducing the number of students who may fall by the wayside.

E-books

David Grams, a teacher at a junior school in Michigan, USA was selected for participation in a programme called 'Learning Without Limits'. Through this iniative, students were provided with handheld computer devices or PDAs with wireless capabilities to see the impact of its use on the students' motivation to read. Grams discussed with students what e-books they were interested in reading and had them downloaded to the students' handhelds. What Grams experienced during the course of this research was phenomenal. There was a never before seen fervour with which students were reading both inside and outside school.

The students appeared to be completing the books faster than before and were even reading during their 'choice time' and periods in between classes. Grams commented on how pleased he was when he saw how engaged the students were in reading their e-books through their handheld. Previously, Grams was unable to get them to be quiet during library time; now they were all totally engaged in their books. Grams felt that he was witnessing a transition or transformation regarding how students would become motivated to read. He believed that "Today's students are the first generation fully comfortable with technology as a way of life." (Rosalia, 2002) Grams, 2003)

Grams also found that students were much more willing to read their e-books once they felt the material was relevant and meaningful to their lives. Increasingly reseachers and educators are finding e-Books are a great tool to be used both by the struggling reader as well as the strong simce they come with features such as voice over and a dictionary which makes it fun as well as non-threatening to them. The only drawback or barrier to the widespread use of e-books through portable e-books readers is the cost.

The use of technology in the classroom

No one can question the importance of technology in suppporting curriculum and educational goals. In our fast changing world, it is critical for educators to get on board in integrating the use of technology with their curriculum goals. I know of one secondary school in East Trinidad which is successfully using technology for teaching, learning and assessment. The integration of technology in the curriclum has many advantages a few of which are as follow:

• Students are more receptive.
• Teachers can organize classes to cater for differences in learning styles.
• Learning can be self paced.
• The learning environment is less threatening since students can communicate with teachers online.
• There is an improvement in students' attitude towards school and learning.
• There is greater independence in learning.
• There is an improvement in self confidence and self esteem.
• There is an improvement in writing skills.

For students who are challenged in reading and writing skills, there are computer based programmes which will provide the students with drills and practice for as long as the students need since the computer cannot run out of patience. According to Wes Rodgers in Students: Technology in the Classroom "students are able to control their own pace at which they proceed through the exercises, they are neither held back nor left behind by their peers."

A critical factor in integrating technology in the curriculum is technology pedagogy and content knowledge, (TPACK). Too often mistakes are made in lesson planning when teachers begin by selecting the tools and resources rather than the educational goals. Harris and Hoffer (2009) stated if learning goals are first selected and pedagogical decisions made according to "students' instructional and contextual realities" the resources to be used for delivery of the lessons will become obvious.

The idea of using technology in the classroom is certainly not a new one, and the opportunities of how it can be used to support educational goals are endless. In Trinidad and Tobago, we still have far to go in implementing this concept, but the Ministry of Education is certainly on the right track by sending teachers for ICT training. Nevertheless, to ensure that this concept is successfully adapted in every school some serious thought must given to many things chief among which is security for these systems when placed in the nation's schools.

Why I chose to join this programme.

When the notice was published in the daily newspaper for applicants for a Masters in Reading, something clicked within me. I knew that getting through to this course was another thread in my life coming together in terms of specializing in this area in education. My journey started years ago back at Valsayn Teacher's College where my Elective was Early Childhood Education and my thesis was a comparative study on two different approaches to the teaching of reading. As a primary school teacher then, I was placed in the first year infant department and so I had the pleasure of teaching reading to beginners. My journey continued when I transferred to another school and had to teach Remedial Reading to Post Primary students.

With the onset of Universal Secondary Education, I was selected to teach Remedial Reading at a junior secondary school to the cohort of students who scored below 30% in the SEA examination. My experience in the classroom working with adolescents who are struggling in reading made me painfully aware of how little I knew about the process. I was fortunate to be selected for this programme, because even though I am not currently teaching Remedial Reading, I am still teaching remedial students. In fact, the school that I am working in gets more than its fair share of students who have reading problems. Most of the teachers are frustrated. Many have resigned themselves to delivering the curriculum to whoever is ready and willing to learn. As a teacher, my personal philosophy has been ' unless you have learnt, I did not teach'. Being on this programme has opened my eyes, so daily, I am seeing what I have being wrong and is making attempts to change so I can reach the students that I have beem given.