Digital Smarts - Kids are Learning 24/7: Are Schools and Parents Ready?

The current media and technology landscape means kids are no longer confined to just learning in the classroom. Sure, kids have always been able to learn outside the classroom via books and other life experiences, but today’s technology allows children to learn in a multitude of new ways. Looking at that change, Project Tomorrow runs a survey called Speak Up, polling hundreds of thousands of sixth graders and adults about learning trends, and makes the local data available to individual districts. Here are a few takeaways:

• For students today, there is very little distinction between school learning versus what they do on their own at home or on their digital device(s). They feel the learning experience is happening all the time. It is also found they have a healthy balance of using print materials versus first-person materials, and having opportunities to engage with people as well as with digital tools. The media is often quick to say kids today just want to put their nose in their phone and don’t want to interact with people, but the survey found that is more of a symptom seen in Millennials rather than in this current generation. 
• Students want to co-learn with their teachers and parents. Because they are so used to looking up information online, they are not looking to the teacher or a parent to be an expert in everything. It is common practice to go home and look up information they received at school – partly for accuracy and partly to learn more about a topic. Parents should understand that and not be offended by kids looking for verification of what they say.
• Students today are also good at authenticating resources. Surveyors were told by students that kids never use a dot com, they don't trust dot coms; that dot orgs are okay; a dot edu is the best; and you shouldn't really even trust the dot govs.