Engagement Activity 3: Reflection on Prensky's ideas

Prensky's Engage Me or Enrage Me initially struck me as overly pandering to underachieving students and laying the blame at the feet of established pedagogy.  Honestly, when I read it in week one I thought it to be a bit of a cop-out, after all, didn't we all tread the traditional education path?  Weren't we bored in class,  distracted by technology, and at times resentful of the time school stole from us so unapologetically?  Perhaps you were lucky enough to be what Prensky calls "truly self-motivated."  I, fortuitously or otherwise, most certainly was not.

Computers have always been a part of my life I reasoned, I wasted as many hours playing video games through my schooling as many kids today.  I had a mobile phone by the time I left high school, so what's so different about kids today?  After all, kids have resented authority for as long as there has been kids and authority, "spare the rod spoil the child" anyone?

So I've put off answering this question because I disagreed with the answer, until that was, I had the opportunity to think a bit more deeply and discovered some experiences common among youth of today that lay in stark contrast to the X's of my gen.  The elephant in the room turns out to be the technology that facilitates this very medium.  'Blog' was not a word when I was in secondary school, well, at least I don't remember it, and that's because the internet was still being toilet trained during my graduation... Wow, that's when it hit me.  Sure, I had many of the digital gadgets around today (albeit in 16bit), what my generation lacked however, was a way that they could all be linked together, in one place, accessible from anywhere, anytime, and by anybody.  What a huge thing for me to miss.  Suddenly I realised why I stopped playing modern warfare online, it was full of 12 year olds... it was full of 12 year olds!


Ok, so now I'm starting to get it.  Kids today live in an online, social, massively multi-player, multimedia world that never sleeps, never goes home, never goes on holiday.  It's just there. Always.  But here's the kicker; nothing a child does in these environments demands attention, there's no big, boring adult looking over the young-un's shoulder, "do this, don't do that."  Everything our students engage with online is voluntary.  This, in my opinion, is where ITC can shine in the classroom.  It's our job, our duty, to engage kids in ways that stimulate their interest in the same manner as the activities in which they so tenaciously participate online.  The video below is an example of something I, as a future math teacher, hope to emulate with my learners.