To continue with Rosen's 11 recommendations for educators (you may want to scroll down to read the previous posts on Rewired):
4) "For most teens and pre-teens, writing is a chore tantamount to an afternoon in the dentist's chair." Rosen's reasons we (educators) insist our is the only method of writing and that the shorthand they use when they communicate is ignored by educators. His observations seem spot-on, his reasoning is sound; let's develop strategies for helping young people become skilled communicators, and if that means we swallow hard and allow text shortcuts in rough drafts, so be it. But let's insist they do make the step to academically polished writing too!
5) "This generation believe in feedback and lots of it." Rosen leaves unanswered the obvious question of how the teacher with 100 students gives constant feedback... maybe we seek help... maybe we help all students learn how to give and take good feedback... hey haven't good middle school teachers been doing this forever?
6) "While Baby-Boomers believe in 'process,' including frequent meetings to discuss issues, iGeners believe in 'product' over process." I think I am firmly in the iGeneration on this one. As I have become a user of ICT, I find I am less interested in talking about how we are going to do what we are going to do, and more interested in what we create (although I also find the process is becoming product as well-- I think that is because learning how to manipulate information and technology is important to me-- skills have become a product with value). My wife suggests my growing aversion to meetings is that I am becoming a disagreeable old man!
(check back for more of Rosen's recommendations, complete with Ackerman's commentary soon)
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