Teaching the Digital Natives

For teachers who are my age, the idea of using technology is daunting.  But we teach a generation of students who were playing with smart phone apps when they were 2 and who know nothing of life without technology!

Let's put this in perspective:



Via: Voxy Blog

• In high school, my report cards were generated with a scantron.  
• Our  "Business Machines" class had no computers. 
• There were no TVs in the classroom.  
• Teachers used film strips or reel-to-reel movies and that was considered innovative.  
• My elementary music teacher traveled on a cart with a record player.
• There were no PCs. 
• The Commodore 64 was an amazing advancement in technology!  
• I took a Programming class in college and learned Basic (a DOS computing language). 
• We played Atari.

If our grade-level teachers don't teach with methods from the 1950's, why do elementary music teachers?

To be fair, elementary music teachers have implemented using CDs, moved from overheads to Power Point and scheduled a few classes in the computer lab to let the kids explore Music Ace.  But by and large, everything else is Kodaly, Orff or Dalcroze inspired methodology.

Yes, kids love music, dancing and movement, music games and playing instruments and we should continue to teach those things.  But there is a HUGE, WIDE WORLD out there of great stuff that students already have access to and we are not connecting to their world in our classrooms!