Carr gave me a lot to think about this week…

One thing Carr mentioned that stuck out to me in this week’s reading was about how people often have three screens open in front of them at once. This struck a chord with me since I have found myself in that same situation, sometime with even four screens in front of me at once. This has been especially true since I have been in Graduate School.  I imagine what it is like for our students who are growing up with this being the new normal. That having multiple screens around and being constantly surrounded by this technology is expected behavior.

According to Carr (2010), print is falling from popularity in so far as how often it is read. This includes not only newspapers and magazines, but books as well. This makes me kind of sad, no matter the benefits of reading on a screen; I don’t think I will ever prefer it, at least when reading for pleasure, over reading a book.

I wonder how Prensky would categorize reading books vs. the same book digitally? Digitally wise, or digitally clever?

This week Prensky (2012) goes into great detail over different actions that make us digitally wiser.

One example is email. This I, I think, really important to pay attention to since it seems like there are so many ways to be digitally dumb, when it comes to email. Mistakes can be made that could not be made while penning a letter, which leads to another interesting thought by Carr. About how some outdated technologies still get used, like vinyl records, but that using this outdated technology is a progressive “dead end”. It does not move us forward in developing new technologies. Letter writing still gets used, and “snail mail” is still around, but it is not progressive.

Another topic Carr (2010) mentions that I found intersting is this:

I had always looked at it from a different perspective. That being able to physically highlight in a textbook for example, is better because it involves more cognitive processes. Where Carr uses the same argument for why reading on a computer is more beneficial. Hmmm… that is something for me to ponder.

Here is something else for me to think about as a special ed teacher.

Having all these distraction can be extremely detrimental to some students. So there is a fine line between making sure our students are being taught the latest and greatest technologies, but also helping them to figure out what kind of learners they are so we can teach them to sift through and find the right type of technology for them. And the flip side, some amazing things are possible for children with disabilities because of technology as well, so teaching the right tools for each individual student is part of what we should be doing as well. I think Prensky would agree, doing so, would be digitally wise.

~I was actually starting to get used to reading, highlighting and taking notes on the computer for this assignment. I finally felt like I got a system going between flipping between the screens with the books, creating screenshots and taking notes on word. THEN I needed to highlight two words on a page in order to take a screenshot. It was the first two words on a page and it was continuation of a quote, so I really needed it. I could not get it to work. It either highlighted everything on that page, but the first two words. OR when I got it to highlight those two words, the “highlight or note” screen did not come up. After about seven tries I gave up. Then a fellow classmate suggested I download the Kindle app for my computer and I was able to get the two words highlighted, but that was a frustrating experience I had this week.

 

Carr, N. G. (2010). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. New York: W.W. Norton. (Kindle)

Prensky, M. (2012). Brain gain: Technology and the quest for digital wisdom. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (Kindle)