This actually occurred to me (or was told to me and I took it in) a week and half ago or so. I came to class a couple minutes late and my professor (I'm phrasing this blog as if it had an audience) said that students are good consumers of technology but for the most part don't know how to produce it. I had actually made a comment that day on one of my classmates posts in which I wondered how much should be expected of teachers in terms of guiding students in a digital world in which the students are usually (much) more competent than the teachers. (A classic scenario is a teacher proudly putting together a powerpoint slide show and then calling up a student to trouble-shoot when it goes awry.)
It was not a rhetorical question by any means--I think it's an important issue. I had realized that analytically judging information is an area for instruction, and within the wheelhouse of most good teachers, but I had basically assumed that it would be extremely difficult for most teachers to provide much technical guidance to students. There's still a lot to deal with in the consuming realm, but seeing the producing realm as a nearly blank slate for students is very encouraging to me. It's within my eventual grasp, I think, to introduce students to actively contributing to the digital world. When you produce something, you become aware of all sorts of decisions you have to make, and in turn the decisions that others make when they produce something for your consumption. It puts students in a much more robust position to analyze what's out there. It also paves the way for them to have a voice themselves.
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