What defines a learner? Someone who learns a subject or skill, to gain knowledge; by studying, practicing or being taught (brittanica.ca). Classrooms are the traditional platform for learnings, for an exchange of information, directed by teachers with content specific lessons. These physical aspects (the old ways) are now integrating technological devices that assist the learner.
Is this tech integration the new foundation for learning and will it replace the human aspects of social relationships (replace the teacher)? According to the ideas presented by Prensky, today’s students can be viewed as digital natives and their learning defined by a set of skills born from the world of technology and internet.
Changing the classroom landscape to reflect this new reality of technology inspired classrooms for the learners who come with pre-existing attitudes, skills and understandings of the role of tech in their lives, born from their personal tech devices (cell phones, ipads, gaming systems, etc). Introducing them to new productivity software, such as AI ChatGPT, can increase their performance and productivity for task completion; but AI has its limits too. We should carefully consider how we allow our students to use AI because, according to Mollick (2023), results are varied. We can use technology and programs, such as AI, to create new attitudes, skills and understanding of technology to assist with learning.
Mrs. Ramona Alexson 
Hi Ramona,
There is an interesting paper I used to read, “The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization?” by Carl and Michael from the University of Oxford. In this paper, they develop a novel methodology to categorize occupations according to their susceptibility to computerization because of the recent advances in Machine Learning (ML) and Mobile Robotics (MR), and then they implement this methodology to estimate the probability of computerization for 702 detailed occupations and examine expected impacts of future computerization on US labour market outcomes. They find out some occupations have a high probability of computerization, such as Bus drivers, transit and intercity, Light truck or delivery services drivers, Word processors and typists, Interpreters and translators, Taxi drivers, Cashiers, Mathematical technicians, and so on. The teacher is ranked 40 which will not easily replace occupation. I think computerization and AI definitely have a great impact on teachers, but will not replace teachers because AI can teach students knowledge and share information, but the essence of education is to educate, not to teach, which AI may not be able to do. Only through the process of teaching, to achieve the purpose of educating people. If we only teach, even if we achieve our own purpose of teaching, it is hard to escape the accusation of using students as tools.
Echo
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Hello Echo! The examination of jobs/labor from a Human Resource (HR) perspective is very technical, fact based analysis. The role of an educator/teacher are diverse with specific knowledge and skills needed to educate/teach. I believe that we are not easily replaced. I read a social media post that related to the effect that teachers have on students can be found in every occupation. This made me realize that we all, in one way, can attribute our success to a teacher(s).
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Hi Ramona, thanks for your blog post. I view the concept of “digital natives” with a high degree of skepticism. As one of the videos this week pointed out comfort and familiarity should not be confused with being knowledgeable. The implications of technology are difficult for experts to predict, let alone school aged children. As one of the other bloggers pointed out this week this is going to require a good deal of facilitation on our end. We are going to be doing a lot of hand holding and guiding as A.I. tools proliferate throughout the system. I think our roles will evolve and change, but I think good teachers are needed now more than ever.
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Yes, Matt! Thank you for your thoughts on “good teachers are needed now more than ever”! I think that our roles as teachers are evolving to facilitators (of tech assisted) learning in all curriculum areas. The more we know, the more our students know, and can apply. I took a critical look at my digital presence with the social web and decided to have “unplugged” presence within our home. This is a part of son’s home, Gen Y parents raising Gen Z children, where tech is put on the shelf for quality family time. Quick classroom story: I used Snapchat as a writing forum to engage my Grade 10 English students in the writing process. They created a written Snap conversation (first), then looked for a non-fiction topic (second) within that conversation. Example, “how does walking benefit a person”. Then they ended the assignment with Snap AI to find facts/research on that topic (final). This was the first time most of them used their Snap Ai, so it was a new thing. It was a good intro lesson to digital citizenship.
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Hi Ramona, the idea of “replacing the teacher” that you bring up is certainly an interesting one. The challenges we now face with AI seem to echo similar conversations being had during the initial COVID pandemic. Online teaching forced educators to adapt and evolve, and the role of the teacher in this new digital world became more unclear than ever. I think that we quickly learned that in the majority of cases, we are not replaceable. I think that this conversation will now be reignited with new digital tools such as AI. And as Matt said above, our roles will continue to evolve over time.
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Hi Cole. Being a teacher in the digital tech classroom age is challenging. Reality in my classroom is varied; no internet at home, no personal devices, limited classroom devices (laptops, ipads), smartboard needs updating, no internet on smartboard, someone took my HDMI cord from my room…etc. Not to forget a lack of professional development/training, and prep time. I think the adapt/evolve mindset is there for most teachers (post Covid), but I agree that roles may be blurred. Sometimes I feel too much reliance is put on me to be the “tech-everything” (find chargers/cords, charge devices, find programs to use, homework club for those with no device/internet in the home, write proposals to purchase classroom devices, etc), so it is more manageable to resort back to pen and paper mode. Thanks for listening to my views.
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Ramona, great post! You certainly raised quite a few points to ponder and reflect upon. I personally struggle with the the concept of digital natives and digital immigrants as all people, young and old, need to practice a task or new skill for a long time (18-254 days) for that new task or skill to become a habit. I do like the idea that David White presented in his video linked from the Visitors & Residents article and how we are all on a continuum between the two.
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Hi Darryl! I wouldn’t mind reading about the concepts of digital natives/digital immigrants more in-depth. If you come across any articles, please share on Discord. I found the video too fast with many facts so it seemed like I was watching a commercial. I look at digital natives as all people that are “born into tech” and look at its usefulness as a learning platform. So, the digital native identity crosses all borders of age (if we apply “being born into”). I think our students are swinging between all these learner/doer concepts and its time to get some solid footing for using tech for learning. I am interested in the Content Catalyst portion of this class. I like learning from others research.
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Hi Ramona! I love that you spoke their language with your Snap AI assignment – great way for them to use something new even within something they’re familiar with. I also really like that you ended your post with being open to how AI can positively impact a student’s attitude, skills, and understanding – for me, this is the biggest plus of AI that students need to be taught and aware of; AI is a tool that can boost the transferrable skill of confidence. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to reading more of your posts!
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