Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Blogs, Wikis and iPods - OH MY!?!?!

Digital Natives, Generation-D (digital), Nintendo Kids, the MTV generation, whatever term you chose to describe them, today's youth has grown up with an unprecedented access to and appetite for technology. Since 1970, when Pong (the revolutionary video arcade game, which I spent many hours playing as a teenager) was introduced, children have consumed a steady diet of digital games, music videos, and the world wide web.

More recently, they have enthusiastically embraced technologies that are on the leading edge of the technology wave including live chats, instant messaging, iPods, blogs, and more. While these terms might be the common language of “Digital Natives”, they are a foreign language to the "Digital Immigrants", like myself, who struggle to understand and master these new technologies.

Over the past 18 months or so, Hughes Springs ISD has jumped head first into the world of these “Digital Natives”. We have invested a lot of time, money and energy into creating 21st Century classrooms for our students. We have 2nd graders creating a class blog, junior high students using iPods to help them in math and high school students completing web quest. And now, I am blogging.

If we expect our students to be 21st Century Learners, and our teachers to be 21st Century teachers, then as superintendent, I must make that leap too.

This is the first post in what I hope is a continuing dialogue between Hughes Springs ISD and our educational community. It is my wish to maintain a site that keeps you informed about the issues that affect the school and community, and, at times, the world around us. I hope you enjoy the posts and look forward to hearing from you.

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