Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

This week, we watched a video about using social networking tools in the classroom. Vicki Davis uses all kind of digital media such as iPods and blogs to help her students to ''learn how to learn'' and to connect them to the world.

Vicki Davis believes that every student can learn and that it is the teacher’s responsibility to vary the activities as well as the tools used in the classroom in order to maintain students’ motivation and to meet their interests. She focuses on the fact that when the teacher focuses on teaching them how to learn, students become autonomous. For example, a teacher can use a new term and he/she does not have to define it because students know how and where to look it up using different tools. As she mentionned ''students should be thinkers''.

Vicki Davis also talks about empowerment. In other words, students become responsible of their own learning. She mentions that the teacher does not have to be in front all the time and neither to know everything. Students figure out notions by themselves and they can even teach the teacher. The goal is to empower students to share with one another.

Personally, I believe that it is important for kids to collaborate with other students across the world. I believe that it can be interesting for learners to share experiences with people who have different values and cultural backgrounds. Moreover, I see it as a good way to open students’ mind. They have to understand that being different is a good thing, especially in an educational context where we welcome students from all around the world. As an ESL teacher, I would use the International Tandem Network to connect my students to the world. I would choose this tool because it has the advantage of being easy to integrate to the classroom context and because it develops students’ reciprocity, autonomy and proficiency in the second language.

 

 

To watch the video, click on the link: http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-teachers-vicki-davis-video