Sorry I haven't been around lately folks. Several exciting projects and time with Madison have kept me very busy. The ideas for my blog have not stopped and rest assured that I have started several posts and have saved them for later.
Today I came across an interesting article in the New York Times that I thought revealed quite a bit about the challenges we face in education while trying to keep up with technology and the mindset of students.
Today I came across an interesting article in the New York Times that I thought revealed quite a bit about the challenges we face in education while trying to keep up with technology and the mindset of students.
The Times article highlight the frustration felt by faculty and staff of different universities over their students departure from email. The faculty is discovering that they have to tell the students to check their email now as opposed to 7 years ago when they worried that students wouldn't be able to see their email. Many of the teachers and staff that I work with would find this to be hard to believe as email is only being introduced at the High School level this year. We as an educational body wouldn't dream of not keeping up with our email and get extremely frustrated with faculty who do not make email a habit.
Why are students ditching email? In a word smartphones. The times point to social media and other alternative ways to connect with the favorite being text. I am finding myself in agreement more and more as I no longer email anything to family and friends. We connect through FB and Twitter. If I need a private conversation I text or radical idea call someone. However I choose to communicate I almost always use my phone or tablet and very rarely turn on a PC for anything other than work.
The article has several reasons why we are moving away from email but I want to point out the most obvious.
Why are students ditching email? In a word smartphones. The times point to social media and other alternative ways to connect with the favorite being text. I am finding myself in agreement more and more as I no longer email anything to family and friends. We connect through FB and Twitter. If I need a private conversation I text or radical idea call someone. However I choose to communicate I almost always use my phone or tablet and very rarely turn on a PC for anything other than work.
The article has several reasons why we are moving away from email but I want to point out the most obvious.
“Faculty and staff love to blame students for not checking e-mail instead of owning up to the fact that no one ever got that good at using e-mail in the first place,” he said, citing vague subject lines and (exaggerating to make his point) 36-paragraph e-mails from faculty in which the crucial information is in paragraph 27. “How are they going to learn to use e-mail when that’s the model, and why would they want to?”
This is a point I have been vocal about for quite some time. Email is not taught in school the way letter writing or resume writing is. This leads to awkward usage of email and a frustrating experience for daily email users. I love twitter with its 140 character limit. Give me the information quickly, succinctly and efficiently. I will decide if this is something I choose to follow up on. A text with a homework assignment change through a service like Remind 101 is perfect. Don't even get me started on forwarding important information. Who wants to wade through hundreds of other forward addresses to see that you have a meeting at 10.
If we want to be successful teaching our students we have to meet them halfway. We cannot be ten years behind getting them a relevant service like email and then when they have moved on to a better product make them drop back to the old way of doing things. Through cloud based sharing, social media and texting we can accomplish connection with students in a timely manner with important information.
Now if we can only get rid of the school dialer. That is truly a technology of the past.
If we want to be successful teaching our students we have to meet them halfway. We cannot be ten years behind getting them a relevant service like email and then when they have moved on to a better product make them drop back to the old way of doing things. Through cloud based sharing, social media and texting we can accomplish connection with students in a timely manner with important information.
Now if we can only get rid of the school dialer. That is truly a technology of the past.