Digital Generation

The most striking thing for me is that very young children already know almost everything about the new technologies. They know how to use them and for what particular thing. Even their teachers learn from them sometimes. Frankly speaking previously I thought that new technologies damage children’s life more, than they help but after watching these videos about “Digital Youth” I completely changed my mind. Now I see that new technologies allow children to create and explore new things because usually children aren’t satisfied with what they search they want to use their findings and be creative. Children use technologies as a digital media which helps them to be informed all the time.

As an EFL teacher I can see the big challenges which exist in Armenia related to new and digital technologies, the use of them for educational purposes. There is a huge work to do to have students to use new technologies in their learning. Of course before doing that the experienced teachers should be in charge. The teachers should be aware that games also can be educative and can help students to create and use their minds. Students can face many problems which they would like to figure out, so they use their brains. As the games are very competitive children use different strategies to solve the problems raised. Also there are many students who don’t enjoy reading so now it’s very easy to listen to a book instead of spending many hours reading it. People can live miles away from each other but they can create a project and work together. Due to this people work collaboratively and build teamwork skills. Technology is more than a tool it’s a vital part of a digital generation. This generation thinks ‘outside the box’.

As a logical continuation as what I discuss above I would like to mention a few ideas from the Sugata Mitra's talk "How kids teach themselves". At first he talks about the remotness and the quality of Education and that the remote areas don't have good teachers and infrustructures. But the main point of his talk is that children can be self-instructed and "education can happen on its own". He conducted a few experiments in different Indian cities and found out that the children can learn themselves having only a computer and an access to the internet. Even without knowing the English language the kids can overcome the language bariers and learn English words (of course those which appear while using the computer) while browsing.