The ever-brilliant blog Adventures in Pencil Integration speaks of a loss of identity as being a primary fear in developing technological skills.
Well, I agree with that. And who has time to shape a new identity, when everyone else on the internet seems to do it better, faster, slicker, with a better camera, with a nicer lens, with more Flash, with just better content, with more time to play.
Some times it feels that way.
I think what I am driving at is we (the teachers) need more time to learn. They (the kids) learn things fairly quickly, especially when the tools to build identity are accepted in the classroom (ie, social networks, on their cells, computers, what they use on their buses and at their lunch tables). While they long for a classroom where they can be themselves, we need time to shape on-line identities that are as powerful as our non-internet selves. Our passion must translate, now, to a more fluid, and less teacher-centric pedagogy. There are experts everywhere. We need to step up our game.
Give us more time--time to play, shape, practice, learn, share, evolve. Show us how to do it. Heck, get them to show us. Let the kids do some professional development for us.
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