Engaging Children to be Readers — Learning in the 21st Century Part 6

“Children need to be creators with technology not consumers” — Jill Bromenschenkel

When I was working as a literacy coach roughly ten years ago, I had the opportunity to work with an inspiring educator, Jill Bromenschenkel. At the time, Jill was a consultant working with the district I worked for. Jill was supporting a technology integration initiative as well as training teachers and leaders on EL strategies.

Let me set the stage a bit, what education was like in regard to technology ten years ago. Classrooms were being outfitted with interactive SMART boards. You were fortunate if you had a SMART board in your classroom. Schools were purchasing student or classroom devices such as ipads. The school that I was working at was buying ipads and storage carts for each grade level to share. This was a huge financial investment. Much of the professional development work that Jill was doing with teachers was around how to use ipads in the classroom. Here is the golden nugget that I learned from Jill. Her philosophy was, for students to be creators not consumers of technology. In other words, Jill wanted students to learn how to use the ipads to create and demonstrate their learning rather than a device to play games. As you can tell her message stuck with me.

Learning has changed dramatically during the 21st Century, especially with the inclusion and integration of technology. When I look back over the past twenty years, learning continues to adapt and change as technology changes. We are moving or need to move from a receptive learning environment where teachers stand and deliver information and students sit back passively and take in the information to an interactive and productive environment where students are engaged and active in the learning process. Jill was spot on with her statement ten years ago. Classrooms or in a broader sense learning spaces such as online learning, need to be a place of inspiration, invention, collaboration, and presentation. These elements need to be present to spark motivation and engaging learning.

Dr. Ernest Morrell shared, “The U.S. holds 4.4% of the world’s population, which means nearly 96% of the people that we could interact with in our lifetime are not even in the United States, let alone our town or state.” This is something that I have experienced repeated since starting Learning For Life. Through the wonders of technology I have been able to connect with several colleagues throughout the world to interview for the Achieving Students’ Best Outcomes: Different Paths to Success summit. There are speakers from Nova Scotia, Switzerland and four from Australia as well as the majority from around the United States. I love being able to share a global perspective as well as different viewpoints and perspectives. This is all part of helping students or learners become critical thinkers and problem solvers.

I had an opportunity just today to interview a homeschool mom and she shared such an intriguing thought or perception about digital literacy. In her perspective she feels its very evident if people are just headline readers or actually take the time to read for depth and knowledge. She said it is so easy to scroll through social media posts and grab the headlines but never actually engage at a deeper level like you do when reading a book. We’ve become a society that skims the highlights or headlines but doesn’t take the time immerse themselves for real learning. Take a moment and think about the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone where real ideas and perspectives were shared. I wonder how often those opportunities present themselves anymore? I hope we don’t let digital devices distract us from what is important and needed as human beings and that is developing and sustaining real relationships with real people.

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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

― Frederick Douglass

The joy is in the journey!

Blessings and Peace,,

Mary