Living and Teaching in The World of Technology AND Promoting Cultural Diversity.

ICT, digital saviness and skill amelioration are crucial in today’s world. Technology is continually changing and one must either keep up or drown. I am in my twenties and consider myself technologically capable or as seen in the Week 3 reading, Prensky (2001) puts it a “Digital Native.” I have grown up with computers and the internet and I am comfortable playing around with a computer, multi-tasking and searching for information. However I only really started using computers programmes such as Miscrosoft Powerpoint and presentations towards the end of high school. Whereas, the year 2 students, 6 and 7 year olds presented slide shows, multimedia clips and songs with ease in class. I feel I am a “digital native”, but I believe there is a new bread of “digital natives”, just like ‘Miscrosoft Windows’ brings out new versions of ‘Office’ each year, “digital natives” change, upgrade and develop faster and younger and us older (I refer to myself and my peers) “digital natives” must also keep up, change and adapt to keep up with the ever changing nature of ICT.

I also observed co-operative learning, learning communities and project based learning (Grabe &Grabe, 2007) that was part of an integrated unit of work “Who am I”. This unit has been worked on for over six weeks and I was fortunate to observe the classes Multicultural Day. The students were dressed in their traditional cultural clothing, gave a presentation to the class and brought in food from their cultural background. Uniqueness and multiculturalism were celebrated and used as tools to teach the students that everybody is different and that is okay. Each person must listen and respect other people even if they are different. There were various quotes written on the white board that included: “Welcome to Multicultural Day”, “Everybody is unique”, “A celebration of our uniqueness”, “It is what makes us special.” From celebrating and listening to each student’s cultural diversity, a greater level of appreciation, respect and understanding was attained. Students were also taught good listening skills, turn taking, appropriate questioning skills and respect (Arthur, Gordon & Butterfield, 2003, Week 5 reading) from this unit. The students were assessed on level of eye contact, ability to speak about their uniqueness, their interests and what food they brought in. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and felt it was a valuable learning experience for the year 2 students as well as myself. As well as ICT, I believe it is crucial to discuss, acknowledge and respect cultural diversity. My teaching philosophy Live Love Learn :) realises that each student is different and that these differences should be identified, celebrated and used as teaching and learning experiences. 

I also believe that a greater level of appreciation and understand comes from discussing cultural diversity and as we live in Australia a multicultural nation it is important to start the discussion from a young age and to continue indefinitely.

References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. 9 (5).

Grabe, M & Grabe, C. (2007) Integrating technology for meaningful learning. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Arthur, M., Gordon. C & Butterfield, N. (2003). The impact of curriculum and instruction. In Classroom Management: Creating Positive Learning Environments, (pp43-52). Thomson: Southbank, Victoria.