This morning, all my literacy students were over at our Senior Campus for a careers expo, so I assisted in the library, where students come when their teachers are absent. It was fascinating to look around at the range of books being read. Everything from Harry Potter to books about cars, Twilight to Skulduggery Pleasant.
What I found even more interesting was that among all the hard copy books were some e-readers; the Year 7 students have been issued iPads and some have already downloaded books to them. And one student who was having difficulty with his hard copy book, was using a dictionary on his iPad to look up stuff. This is the way of the immediate future (who knows what they'll be doing in even ten years' time? Maybe Internet/reading chips implanted? :-D). Next year, when these young men and women are in my Year 8 class, and one of them asks me a question I don't know the answer to, I'll say, "You know, I'm not sure. Why don't we look it up?" Or instead of printing out twenty-five copies of a short story I want them to read, I can tell them to get out their iPads.
It's an exciting time!
What I found even more interesting was that among all the hard copy books were some e-readers; the Year 7 students have been issued iPads and some have already downloaded books to them. And one student who was having difficulty with his hard copy book, was using a dictionary on his iPad to look up stuff. This is the way of the immediate future (who knows what they'll be doing in even ten years' time? Maybe Internet/reading chips implanted? :-D). Next year, when these young men and women are in my Year 8 class, and one of them asks me a question I don't know the answer to, I'll say, "You know, I'm not sure. Why don't we look it up?" Or instead of printing out twenty-five copies of a short story I want them to read, I can tell them to get out their iPads.
It's an exciting time!
3 comments:
This is definitely the way of the future. It always amazes me how quickly kids pick up technology. I can barely keep my blog running. Maybe some day soon one of those kids will be reading my book on their Ipads!
One of the things I love about my Kindle is the built-in dictionary. So easy!
I love that this generation is one that isn't happy to sit around not knowing something. With Google at our fingertips and smartphones galore, there's no excuse to not look something up. I think it marks a huge difference in thinking. I'll never forget the amount of times I used to suggest looking something up to an old boss of mine--each time I said it he'd just look at me as though I'd invented electricity. "Look it up? Why didn't I think of that?"
Lan: actually, what they REALLY pick up quickly is how to use a proxy to get into web sites the school has blocked.;-) And they forget their login passwords every other day, bless them. But the little ones love their iPads and are learning to use them quickly. As for your book, you do have to publish it first, then I'll let my young friend Ali know. He's thrilled to have all those 99c books available on Amazon and the greatest tragedy he suffered recently was dropping and breaking his Kindle.
Stephanie: yes, the dictionary is great, isn't it?the iPad has one too. It will make teaching very different being able to stop and look things up, then discuss it.
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