What Do You Know about Teaching Gen-Z?

Yesterday I read an article in the Washington Post that really made me think about the students in our schools today. The article is called "Who Are These Kids? Inside the race to decipher today's teens who will transform society as we know it."  The author, Caitlin Gibson, defines the current generation as Gen-Z or iGen and notes that these kids were born between 1998 and today. The oldest of these students are age 18 to 20 and will be voting in their first presidential election this fall. Of course they would be called the iGeneration because they grew up in the "Screen Age" using iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices.

Please allow me to share some results of this ongoing research to learn more about our youngest generation. By interviewing Gen-Z students researchers found that these kids spend an average of 2 to 5 hours per day in front of screens, with some reporting 9 hours per day accessing media. Some reported getting their first phone in the 5th grade and loving apps. A 10 year old stated that she received 219 text messages in a single day. Gen-Z students describe their school day as using Chromebooks or computers in each class, and if the power goes out they just sit there. Learning for these students is engaging online. What does this expectation say to teachers and teacher education programs about how we need to teach to reach these students?

Gen-Z kids really did learn to use tablets often before they could talk, and their parents frequently shared baby photos on social media as soon as these children were born. Gen-Z kids report communicating today almost entirely through screens using images and video, often self-created, along with words. Multimedia is the language in which they communicate. They are more open on social media than Millennials, and also more realistic when it comes to costs because they lived through the recession.

The article does a nice job of following technology use through the existing generations today: The Greatest Generation listened to the radio, the Boomers watched TV, GenX used computers, Millennials use the Internet, and Gen-Z are mobile screen users and creators. This research is being conducted to inform all areas of society where these newest workers are beginning to graduate high school this year and fill positions. Will Gen-Z expect college online? Will they prefer to work from home? How and what will they purchase? All of these expectation from the Gen-Z kids who are used to constant attention from social media connections will determine the direction society moves. Anyone watching the presidential primary process can see how candidates are attuned to capturing the attention and support of these newest voters.

So how do schools and universities need to prepare these students to be productive citizens and lifelong learners? I suggest that we build upon their strengths and interests utilizing technology as a vehicle for learning. We make students creators and encourage them to share their learning with the world. We help them connect with a variety of people to solve real-world problems and act on their suggestions. We teach remembering that it's all about our students and preparing them for the society and world in which they will need to live and contribute. Provide students choice in technology tools and projects used to learn and demonstrate learning, and be willing to learn from these true digital natives. All the best as you empower Gen-Z to positively impact the world.

Five Things You Can Do This Summer to Integrate Technology in Meaningful Ways This Fall

It's summer! School is out! Teachers have just told their students to keep reading over the summer so they don't lose all the progress they made this year. And practice your math facts so you come back in the fall ready to move on to even more challenging math concepts. Have fun but remember to take time to practice your skills too.

And teachers this is my challenge to you as well, keep playing with technology over the summer so you come back in the fall ready to integrate technology in meaningful ways. Here are five things you can do this summer to be ready to help your students use technology to learn this fall.

1. Visit TechEDGE01 on YouTube to explore some tech tools for Mobile Learning in the Classroom. Select from over 250 short videos arranged by grade level and topic to learn some new tools and how you might integrate them into your teaching this fall. Some topics you will enjoy visiting yourself this summer before taking your students there this fall: summer reading apps, history apps, geography games, poetry apps, and online museums.

2. Subscribe to the FreeTech4Teachers blog by Richard Byrne for updates on what's new in technology. His short blog posts present a new tool and tips on how to use it. One idea I just got from his blog that I will try in the coming days is wideo.co to create videos with interactive embed buttons to take viewers to websites and other locations for more information.

3. Create a blog to organize your teaching content for fall. Take that paper newsletter and turn it into a blog post for parents. Include links to websites and apps you want to recommend. I suggest Blogger.com for an easy blog to create and post. When your students create multimedia projects you can easily link them here to share.

4. Enrich one fall unit with technology. Review the TPACK model and add technology knowledge to your content and pedagogy. What technology could take students' learning to the next level? How could technology help students learn the most current content? (Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org)

5. Play with tools! Have fun! Explore! The wonder of mobile technology is that it works outside too! Take your device to the beach with you. Take pictures, video, then turn it into a multimedia presentation with the touch of a button. Two of my favorite tools to do this are Puppet EDU and Haiku Deck. Now that you know the procedure you can have students create one when they return about all the exciting things they did over the summer!

One Ream of Paper

I recently talked to a teacher who said their school now provides one ream of paper per teacher each quarter. Wikipedia defines a ream as 500 sheets of writing paper. If the average class size is 25 students, then one ream would allow a teacher to copy 20 one-page assignments each quarter. Currently I see about 4 reams of copied math worksheets arrive each Monday in many classes. But I see this changing as classrooms get 1:1 devices, use Google Classroom, and adopt online textbooks.

Since the first of the year the schools I supervise are now 1:1 Chromebooks for grades three through five. At the beginning of the semester when given the choice by teachers to get a hard-covered reading text or access the online version, I observed most students using the traditional paper text. It was familiar, and although these anthologies are heavy, students know how to find information in them quickly. As the semester progressed more teachers began posting assignments in Google Classroom. Now students have their Chromebooks on their desks with one tab open to Google Classroom. Teachers post a beginning question for students to post their prediction about what will happen in the story. Then they read the predictions of others in their class and respond to them. This whole building background process takes less than five minutes, every student has the chance to answer the question, they collaborate with others online, they are prepared for the lesson, AND they learn how to use an online management system!

By the end of the semester things had changed. Chromebooks were out on desks, one tab was open to Google Classroom, AND another tab was open to the curriculum website. Rather than handing out paper graphic organizers or questions, students access and complete these tools online. Students are using the curriculum website for more than practice activities; 90% of students now given the choice to read from the paper text or digital text select the online version.

Things are changing as traditional paper hits the digital world. And this allows the types of activities students do to change as well. Rather than completing graphic organizers, they can now create their own. Instead of answering worksheet questions students can create multimedia presentations that demonstrate comprehension. Every student can respond through Google Forms where data is collected and used by the teacher to inform instruction. And students can collaborate on projects with accountability as each person's online contribution is stamped with date and time.

So what's next? Perhaps one ream of paper per semester? Many of the teachers I work with are going paperless. We need continued research and instruction on new literacies to help students effectively read and compose online. Donald Leu and colleagues at the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut are collecting informative data about how students read and research online and what assessment of online reading comprehension may look like. Articles on new literacies are appearing regularly in literacy journals. I suggest reading Leu's Preparing Students for the 21st Century: How can teachers incorporate new literacies into elementary classrooms. And teachers are learning daily how to best empower students with support in online environments. I am very interested to know what you are finding helpful in your classes.