Doug Johnson was the keynote speaker today at the second day of the I-Tech Conference. His topic was about teaching the Next-Gen (next generation) learners.
He said that discrimination and evaluation skills are important, and students need guides more than ever with all of these new technology tools. He spoke about their learning styles, and said that they are social learners...they seek personal information and are informal learners...they have hypertext minds who read visual images, they like inductive discovery, they learn by dong, and they shift their attention rapidly and expect fast responses. He said that they need engaging activities...not just entertaining activities.
His message was to use technology in the schools instead of banning it. He liked the use of cell phones to have students respond to surveys. He advises that we
teach copywriter rules from the point of view of the creator by having them create things that they wouldn't want copied and discuss it.
Have them work on things that matter...give assignments that are worth their time..make sure assignments are relevant to them.
He said that it will be easier to teach the next generation learners by changing the way we teach than changing the way they learn. I liked his speech very much, and agreed with him. I mostly liked the respect he had for the learners of today, and the way he wished for them to be embraced for the amazing learners they are and to embrace technology for the amazing tool that it is. Especially with guidance!
I went to Vendor Hall and asked a lot of questions of the vendors to find out what was new. I ran into someone who was working with Mount Vernon to get their one-to-one initiative going; hopefully this year.
My favorite session today was by Morrie Reece, and it was on using i-pad in the science classroom. I learned about a lot of nice apps for the i-pad, and I didn't know that you could use a wireless microscope (a pricey one...though) with the i-pad. He used a document camera to project the i-pad to the screen. He had one that zoomed in on the parts of the internal anatomy...even into the ventricles of the heart.
