The Generations, Digital Kids, and More

This week, you will continue your journey in becoming a digital teacher. During this week’s opening video, Ellen will first discuss the generations with you and then start reviewing some of the major differences between you and your students, differences that research is showing are not just “generational differences.” After watching this first video, scroll down for more information and an additional video.

Press Play

to view the videos below.

This second short video will show you how Ellen created the video you just watched, which was basically a PowerPoint presentation made into a video screencast. To create this video screencast, Ellen used an inexpensive microphone attached to her computer and a software program called Camtasia. As you will see, it is as simple as two clicks of your mouse to create a video screencast (three clicks if using Office 2007). After reviewing this second video, scroll down for more information and a very important discussion on The Changing Face of Education.

We also want you to start thinking about how you can make your teaching more relevant for your students. There are literally thousands of ways to make teaching relevant and we will be discussing relevancy throughout this course. If you notice in the first video, we made the video more relevant to you by adding in pictures and music. The second video also includes a background music track. Thus, we made these two videos a better “learning opportunity” for you and have provided you with a simple example of using 21st century tools to make learning relevant. Don’t worry, we will show you how to add pictures, music, and more to your video screencasts later in the course.

The Changing Face of Education

The Internet is an invaluable communication tool in schools and homes. Most teenagers would deem it to be essential! Smartphones, college dorms, coffee shops, airports, and many restaurants also provide wireless access to the Internet. Two factors have enabled this wide distribution of the Internet: wireless technology and broadband connections. To elaborate on the latter, broadband connections are able to process digital information more quickly, have a larger amount of bandwidth, and have quickly become mainstream in American homes and schools.

Because of the rapid dissemination of wireless technology/broadband connections and “new” economic realities of the second decade of the 21st century, PreK–12 education is beginning the process of dramatic change and change that will be created, tweaked, and tweaked again by you and your peers — resulting in a new education system. Experts agree that this changing face of education is yet to be defined, but will include virtual teaching and learning or eLearning in three ways:

1. Classroom teacher–created supplemental content — The days of students sitting in computer labs using desktop computers to work through education software programs are clearly disappearing. Technologies now exist for teachers to easily create extensive supplemental content, including videos, at virtually no cost and provide them online for their students to use out of class. New wireless netbook computers (at less than $200) mean that all students can have access to content created by their classroom teacher, anywhere and anytime. For your final project, you will create videos for your students to interact with out–of–class and starting with this week’s Tips & Tricks section, you will begin to learn how to use a program, Camtasia, to create your supplemental videos.

2. 100% online courses — The number of middle and high school students taking 100% online courses has exploded over the past few years, most states now have virtual schools and a number of states have mandated that all high school students take at least one 100% online course. 100% online courses will continue to explode and will be part of the changing face of education, but most experts agree, 100% online is only one component of the changing face of education; most kids will continue to attend traditional face–to–face (f2f) schools.

3. Blended learning — For the purpose of this course, blended learning is defined as courses that meet in a face–to–face classroom for part of the class and meet virtually or online for the rest of the class. In other words, you teach part of the time in your traditional classroom and the rest is online. A recent major study by the U.S. Department of Education concluded that blended learning is the best of both worlds by merging f2f and online teaching and learning. Some schools have already transitioned to a “blended school year” with four days of f2f instruction per week and students interacting with online content on the fifth day. Another emerging trend is to create “blended summer school” and blended credit recovery courses. You may only teach one or two days a week during summer with the remainder being online.

Throughout this course, you will discover and explore new teaching strategies and ideas that will help you meet the needs of your digital students in the changing face of education. One thing’s for certain, you are already part of the changing face of education and may teach an online course or in a blended environment in the near future.

If you have completed this page, continue to the Camtasia in Action page.