Video: A Vision of Students Today
Monday, November 5th, 2007
Something to chew on. Take a look at this short film (If the clips are missing in your email or RSS reader, go direct to the tech blog and view it there).
(Courtesy of TeacherTube)
More clips are available at mediacultures.net at Kansas State University. A transcript is available on the class blog.
So… what do you think? I realize there are an abundance of ‘ya, buts,” but I’m interested in your thoughts on what this means for us today. What reasonable steps could be taken in the direction needed? Be careful not to dismiss that content as irrelevant just because these are older students. Add your comments/responses on the Instructional Tech blog site.
Two other sidenotes:
1.) The collaborative editing tool noted in the video is Google Docs. It is free, accessible anywhere online (It remains blocked in some districts. Ask.), and includes essential word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools. This is a great tool for collaborative student projects, especially in that it tracks user edits making it possible to see who’s actively participating.
2.) Some people have raised the points the students make about using Facebook and working on other things during class as just cause to ban the use of laptops and other devices from the classroom, most commonly in college settings. The real question this raises is whether the laptops are the cause or the effect of the distraction.
Tags: learning, Technology
November 6th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I wanted to check out teachertube for speed at school, and I tried to watch the video of “vision-of-students-today”. It was very choppy, but could be better if I would have watched it all the way through and replayed it. Choppy is relative to speed which is relative to the internet, your network, and your puter. I would speculate that there are ways to use teachertube while making the choppyness go away. Also, can I get a new delete key for this website
I am not use to the backspace key 
November 18th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
The whole thing about students checking personal email, Facebook, myspace, texting…(ad finitum)in school is just an extention of the whole being rebelious, doing the forbidden, being “cool” drive/ bonding thing. As we know, the prefrontal cortex of a teenager’s brain does not usually develop until later. Actually, I’ve heard rumours of teachers texting during school hours, too. Maybe it’s just human nature.
MMP
November 18th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Oops! Actually, I was responding to something slightly different in the previous comment.
I’ve seen the “video” Vision of Students today, and I find that it has accents of truth but no cheese to go with the whine. It has the usual manipulative use of statistics, as well.
Though I didn’t walk up hill both ways to school, I did work wayyyyy more than just three hours a day while in undergrad. I worked in the snack bar between classes and dashed to a local restaurant to work after classes. I also catered. As a divorced parent, I spent as much time as I humanly could with my three(at that time) small children. (I’ve fallen asleep with my eyes open while sitting cross-legged on the floor of my sons’ bedroom and reading them bedtime stories).
Most humanity does not appreciate what it/we have unless we’ve got emotional investment in it (or in getting it).
Many of of us who’ve had to work beyond intellectual development while in college(yet still seek shelter in that development) see a brighter (tyger, tyger burning bright) vision of the tantalizing intellectual chimera(?) of education’s future.
MMP
November 19th, 2007 at 11:03 am
@Martha – Very good points… There were a number of others who had the same reaction that you did. Make sure you check out the follow-up post on this topic, “Follow-up: A Vision of Students Today“. I think you’d find the comments under the flipping the perspective link particularly interesting given your background.
Thanks for your comments!