Prensky

That's it. I've had it. I've tried a couple of times to write a post about this, trying to be satirical and amusing, didn't work, I'm not Diarmuid. Now, however, I don't care any more, I'm just going to say it. So, as a result, this is going to be a bit of a rant.

Some of the people preaching evangelically about the technological future of education seem not to be using the critical thinking skills that they think certain aspects of technology and the use of online research will support. Prensky is a good example. To read into his background and check out his references is to find a complete lack of academic rigour and absolutely no support for the outrageous suggestion that his so-called 'digital natives' have evolved alternative neurological processes. It's a completely useless dichotomy anyway.

Repeated references to Prensky's writings demonstrate that some people blogging about educational technology have not perhaps actually read the writing of real academics investigating the pedagogical benefits of its use. Blindly calling for institutional change without making an effort to consider whether these things are actually supported at all by science. I'm sick of seeing Prensky's quote (as shown in the picture) which is based on research completely unrelated to education and technology and has been conveniently cherry-picked to support his sales pitch.

I'm not saying that there is absolutely no truth or purpose in his ideas, there probably is a need to engage students in more IT based learning, as in general it seems to be motivating, yet all students are not the same and categorising all students below a certain age in the same way is unhelpful and wrong. Furthermore, learning can't be fun all the time, 'edutainment' has its limits. 

Prensky has his own bandwagon rolling and the promotion of technology in education is not helped by jumping on it. There seems to be a repeated online call saying that without technology in class you're a bad teacher, which is a massive a guilt trip, a suggestion that some of Prensky's writings are full of, openly attempting to pension off any teachers who aren't suddenly leaping into the digital world. It must certainly make people feel better about themselves if they are one of these amazing technologically enhanced 'super-educators', eh? Since when did a teacher become an 'educator' anyway? But I digress.

Another thing is that it is worth remembering that, as Morrissey once sang: "America is not the world". Just because US kids are glued to a digital screen doesn't mean the rest of the world is, or that it even wants to be. I know from first hand experience that in Spain, generally, teenagers are far more active socially OUT of their house and away from their computers than they are on them. If that's what they want, who's going to make them change?

There is a place for technology in education, but education is not technology, just as education is not a course book. If people want to change the world of education, they might want to support their ideas with a little research first; critical thinking is necessary for teachers as well as learners.