Students and Technology

Students and Technology

How many of us learned to type on something similar to this? I’ll admit, I am old enough to have taken a typing class in high school. It was actually a requirement!

Well, thankfully, technology has come a LONG way since my high school class. But, have you kept pace with the changing technologies that your students are using? Many of us feel overwhelmed when we think about how much more our students know than we do about technology. Why are we OK with this?

I am privileged to travel the country speaking to thousands of people about social media, technology, and other related topics. I recently spoke at a middle school in Kentucky which happens to have a ROCKSTAR as their Youth Service Center Coordinator. This guy loves to collect and analyze data! So, he sent out surveys to the students after I conducted a 45 minute student assembly on Responsible Use of Technology. The results blew my mind!

Just looking at the 8th grade responses, he found:

94% of students said it is important for middle school students to be educated on social media issues

Only 46% of students reported their  parents have talked to them, and set rules on their social media use

So, almost ALL students thought they need to be educated, but less than HALF of their parents have talked to them about this.

Also:

90%  feel like they are more educated about how to avoid online problems after attending the presentation

94% said because of the presentation they are less likely to post something negative online

And, probably the most troubling number of all:

75% of students reported the information received from the presentation was the most information someone has ever given them about online/internet/social media topics. 

I spent 45 minutes with these kids in the gymnasium, and that is the MOST information anyone has ever given them?

We can do better!

Talk to your students today!

Because, I believe, with better information, students will make better decisions. I hate having students in tears talking to me after an assembly because “no one ever told them this information before”. Had they known, they wouldn’t be in tears.

Corrective ribbon used to fix our technology mistakes. We are LONG past the typewriter stage. It is WAY more difficult to fix our students mistakes today. We MUST educate them better to avoid these mistakes in the first place!

 

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