With technology constantly changing and being integrated into many aspects of our lives, are teacher's meeting the needs of a child of the 21st century? The educational and life needs of children are changing. The old ways of schooling need to be combined with modern technology.
The next generation of child, google, social media and the overall world of the Internet are becoming second nature.What is Social Media? What is credible information to use for research from the internet? How do we know what the truth is on the internet? What are safe videos to watch on youtube? Seems kind of like odd questions but becoming more and more relevant for this generation of children.
Do our children know how to be Internet wizards and get the full and proper benefits that the World Wide Web have to offer? Do they know all the good things that internet have to offer? Can they do searches and find the credible info that they really need? I find when I am doing computer training and we do a research portion, a lot of the children can't tell the difference between a credible and not credible website. Researching is not a skill that can be always naturally mastered. Our children need guidance and shown how to do this. It is done a bit but needs more class time. Internet skills are becoming a life skill in some ways to find and look favourable in today's job market. We want our children to feel prepared for the real world.
Do our children know how to be safe and smart on the Internet? Do they know what information and media is safe to share on the internet? Do they think about what personal information is not appropriate to share? What are our kids sharing on the internet? Do they uphold proper etiquette and manners when using social media? In the day and age where a majority of our students have facebook, twitter, instagram or various other social media outlets do we really understand what our children are doing ?
Should there be Internet 101 classes? Children can't learn the ways of the internet just by going on it, they need guidance and rules just like anything else. Social Media class, teaching our kids how to be safe and smart with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the world of Social Media Smart searching and the ways of the internet, showing our children what credible and non-credible websites are.
Our children need to become digital native/citizens.
