Week+2+(January+18,+2010)

**Understanding Digital Kids (part 2)**

The part of this article that I find the most relevant for me describes how **teachers need to do less teaching** and focus more on how to encourage the students to become independent learners. As the author says, "Our job is to make sure they don’t need us by the time they graduate from our schools". I completely agree with this statement. My father was a principle and he once told me that at the beginning of each year, he reminded his teachers that they were not there to teach facts, but to teach the students how to learn. That really stuck with me. I've often tried to integrate that philosophy into my teaching and I believe that using new technology is fundamental to accomplish this. For example, I'm a French teacher. Instead of just teaching grammar rules all the time, I often get my students to give short lessons to each other. That way, the student learns how to research, make a presentation and lead a discussion. Using the internet is key to this technique because **the student needs to be able to research quickly**, not feel intimidated by the subject matter and have fun too. I usually ask my students to prepare a handout for the class and present the rules on the blackboard. However, now that I'm learning all sorts of new applications on the internet, it would be great to implement those as well. For example, I could encourage students to make a wiki page where all the rules, exercises and worksheets are available online. With Google Forms I could show them how to quickly make their own test and follow the progress of their classmates. This way, they will know if their teaching is effective or not.



My final thought for this reading refers to motivation. The author ends by saying that the most important thing a teacher can do is **give kids the confidence to try new things.** Students should feel comfortable trying new programs, experimenting with colour and implementing techniques that reflect their grasp of concepts. I hope to do this in my future teaching. Now that I feel less intimidated by the new technology that is out there, I hope to show my students that, regardless of whether they succeed or fail, trying new things is a great way to approach different situations. In short, I hope to encourage my students to become the type of person that I would like to become, in terms of technology and different aspects of life and learning.