Sweden is perhaps one of the top ten countries in the world known for its straight forward IT development and IT integration when it comes to IT in society. But children growing up in the 21st century still have a lot to learn about technology and the Internet.
I have done something I have been wanting to do for a long time. My students are as we speak signing up for a new email account at Gmail. In order to view a test on Shakespeare they will have to finish at home, by using the Internet and by researching, they will have to have access to Google Docs. After signing up for Gmail they send an email to my Gmail address and I will invite them as document collaborators to the test itself. When I introduced this, most of the students were very confused. I tried to explain both in English and Swedish a couple of times and sent them home to try to figure it out on their own.
Out of 27 kids, aged 15, four of them have so far been able to sign up for Gmail without any help or questions. The rest are contacting me all the time since they don’t know how to do it or what to do. Not even when they use Gmail in their own language, Swedish, they can do a simple task like signing up for a new email account. This is a proof of something interesting, namely the lack of knowledge in how technology works and how web applications work. They are limited to starting their Live Messenger application, logging on to a Counter Strike server and post photos on Facebook or other communities. Everything else, they have no clue about.
I am looking forward to get the test started. They will have three weeks to complete every assignment and the are allowed to use every tool they can find, except Google Translate. The test must be done in Google Docs and I will also mark and correct their test in Google Docs. This is something they have never done before and most of them are curious but also very anxious about getting started.
But I mean I can’t really blame them. There are no schools teaching how to use and get the most out of Internet at the moment (not untill college anyway) and they are unfamiliar with how things work and the structure of even the simpliest application. Applications that really don’t need that much explanation. Why is this, I keep asking myself. I think it is because the rest of us aren’t much better at technology than they are, and those of us who are, tend not to share our secrets.
Next step will be to have homework support via Twitter, but it won’t happen for a long time. They are just not ready to continue their journey on the Web.
Filed under: Criticism, E-learning, Social networking, E-learning, Education, Teaching
