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John Dewey said, " if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow"

What does it mean to teach in the Internet age or a digital world? It means teachers need to be using the Internet including web 2.0, podcasts, wikis, blogs and, yes, even social networking sites to teach our children. It also means using cell phones and iPods in today's classes. Teaching in the Internet age means we must teach tomorrow's skills today.

As with any technology there are pros and cons to teaching using the Internet in the classroom. The cons include inaccurate information; distractions such as online games, emails and IM's; and the ability to easily plagiarize information. The pros include easy access to information and the fact that the Internet is an excellent research tool when used correctly. Teachers must teach how to find information, how to determine if it is accurate and then teach students how to use it without plagiarizing. It's a lot of work but well worth the end result.

Teaching today is vastly different than it was twenty years ago. Today's teens are part of the generational cohort known as Generation Y or Millennials; they are the largest cohort since the Baby Boomers. They are technology wise consumers, content creators and digital natives. Today's students are immersed in media. According to Gartner, by 2009, fifty percent of courses offered will be a hybrid of face-to-face and online, and more than eighty percent of students will use mobile technology as a tool for learning.

According to Marc Prensky nearly forty percent of students in Jr. High Schools have access to cell phones. The numbers increase to seventy-five percent for high school students and ninety percent for colleges. How do you use a cell phone to teach? Today's phones are much more than phones. They are calendars, alarms, music players, navigation systems, digital video cameras, and still cameras. One idea is to have students create a thirty second film using the camera on the cell phone. Karl Fisch said "We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet." Today's teachers must teach the way today's students learn, even if it is uncomfortable at first.

References:

http://www.so cialmarketing.org/newsletter/f eatures/generation3.htm

http:// www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia1 02803pkg.cfm

http://thefischbow l.blogspot.com

Gartner; 2004; E-Learning in Higher Education: a Quiet Revolution

Prensky; 2005; What Can You Learn From a Cell Phone? Almost anything!

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Fleming.
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