Chapter 9 of his book is entitled "Rewiring Education," and as the title suggests, he gives educators his advice. In this post, I will begin to summarize (and comment on) his 11 recommendations:
1) "The iGeneration is a creative multimedia generation." Yup, this is very obvious... YouTube, iTunes, are sites these people visit... all the time. The question for educators is to decide how to recognize this and use it to our advantage. When I was in middle school, movies in class meant nap time. That is not true anymore (if we chooses and use video well).
2) "Education must respect and mine this generation of 'content creators.'" Writing papers? Sure, we need to help kids get really good at that, but we also need to help them get good at creating media... and maybe we can even get kids to write if we use the media with wisdom.
3) This generation thrives on social interactions, but not just talking amongst themselves in class or at recess." This (I believe) is the one defining difference between "adults" and the iGeneration; and it is also the one that has potential to cause the most conflict in schools. I am not going to suggest that we should allow students full use of their cell phones during class, but I am going to suggest we develop strategies for accommodating this characteristic of the iGeneration in a non-disruptive manner. [My three rules are simple and students seem to appreciate it: 1) When someone is talking to the class, either adult or student is talking to the group, no phones. 2) When we are working on project-- yes, it easier for me as I am a computer teacher who has a project-based curriculum-- you may read messages. 3) When doing #2 do it without drawing attention to yourself or talking about the message.]
(to be continued...)
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