Podcast- Technology Interview of Today's Students

In the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1, Prensky (2001) stated that "today's average college grads have spent fewer than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, e-mail, the internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives (pg.3)."

As part of my graduate studies, this week I was required to survey how my students use technology, the types of technology they use, how often they use technology, and how they feel about technology use at home and at school. I conducted the survey with my eighth grade students. At the completion of the survey I chose four students to be interviewed. Their responses represented those of the class majority. This was my first ever podcast, in fact a student had to instruct me on how to us GarageBand on my personal computer. I was intrigued by the level of experience my students have with the various technology tools and embarrassed that it far exceeded my knowledge and experience. I was also bothered by the students frustration with the technology use at school and the lack thereof. I was surprised that sightly less then half of my students are either not allowed to use social media sites like Facebook and many of them who do use these sites were only recently permitted to do so. I was equally surprised that on average students spend one hour or less using the computer for school or to complete assignments. Many of my students stated that they have created their own Podcasts and blogs in their free time for fun yet never used these tools in school or for academic use.  My goal is to begin incorporating these tools more and more into my lessons. The more I practice using these tools the better I understand their benefits and the more confident I become with incorporating them.

This is my podcast interview of my four eighth grade students. These students as well as the majority of my students represent the school student body that is performing either at or above skill level. Two girls are White, one is Asian, and one is mixed race. These students are also from a middle to high income home, as are the majority of students in my class.  I apologize for the length of the interview and the technical difficulties, these students were so excited to share their thoughts. This and my lack of experience with the program made it very difficult for me to edit and delete without losing key responses.

Thank you for your time and patience in viewing my podcast. I am a newbie in training looking forward to becoming an expert at teaching with technology.

Podcast - Technology Interview: Today's Students 

Click here for the full interview:

Today's Students-Technology Interview

Reference: Prensky, M. (2001).(p.3) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).)."