Immigrants to a Digital Nation

In my college speech class I recall one rule cited over and over: know your audience. We may not think of ourselves as such, but teachers are public speakers - perhaps even more so than politicians. Teachers affect lives; every day, all day teachers are guiding and instructing. One would not expect an intro level physics course to get into the nitty-gritty of quantum theory, so, why then, would teachers feel it is unimportant to know their students? Those K-12 learners that are entering the classroom each day are digital natives, having grown up in a world of technology, instant and complete immersion, and continual entertainment. Knowing this about the student audience, teachers must assimilate into the digital society and understand the thought process of these students. Gone are the days and practices of when I was in school: computer lab periods to play Oregon Trail on a 8" floppy discs as a reward for work completed, videos as the only alternate to lecture as a style of teaching, pagers and pay phones to organize after school plans, typing class, and using correction rolls on the typewriter to submit formal paper assignments. It may be even a good measure to poke fun with our students about the "days of dinosaurs" when technology was merely a blip on the radar screen and fax machines seemed like futuristic technology. The fact is, however, that though we come from a different age, a new one has dawned. It is our responsibility to keep pace with both technology and our students. Through technology symposiums for educators, continuing ed classes, and knowledge share groups teachers can incorporate elmo's, digital story telling, text message polls, animation and countless other methods of engaging our digital native students.