The Digital Kids

I went to the Republic Polytechnic www.rp.edu.sg recently and it brought memories of my Poly days.(btw I was from SP)I was deeply fascinated by the students and the gadgets that they carry along.iMacs,iPods,PSPs,3G handphones,dSLRs and needless to say,the whole campus has wireless access.With all these gadgets,I wonder why do they still complain of being bored all the time?During my stint,the technological wonder we had back then was the Sony CD player,with just a CD or two.Nowadays,their 60GB iPods can carry up to 11,000 songs,photos and videos.I read an article about Understanding Digital Kids and these are the differences between back then(my time) and the present.

Back Then(My poly days)

• No Cable TV with 100 channels,so I'm forced to watch TCS channels 5,8 and Prime 12.Sometimes TV3 and RTM 1 from Malaysia.MTV was just beginning to emerge
• No handphones,let alone 3G,and only a few guys back then had pagers.Trying to locate your frens for kopitiam sessions or prata therapy was difficult
• No Internet,which means no Instant Messenger,emails,Google,Youtube,Wikipedia,Dictionary.com,Blogger, and other useful tools
• No online games but we had the 16-bit Sega back then,which uses catridges instead of CDs.Today's game consoles uses HD-DVD and Blu Ray with 1080p definition
• No digital cameras and pictures taken need to be developed in the lab.We also had to use films.For todays kids,there has never been a time when digital cameras,compact flash cards and Adobe Photoshop didnt exist
• Need to queue for everything as payments,administrative issues and other matters cannot be resolved online

Unfortunately,my daughter Aisyah is also currently being nannied by Disney Playhouse,Cartoon Network and Nickelodean to keep her company.As a digital kid,she also knows that she can view Barney,Mr Bean and the latest Hindi songs from her mum's laptop through Youtube,anytime,anywhere.She can also view videos of herself from my handphone.She is growing up in a non-linear,twitch-speed,sound and light culture.I am worried that if this trend continues,she will get bored easily and cannot study the way I did many,many years ago.That is,sitting down for hours going through mathematical questions using pen and paper!She will find yesteryear's teaching and learning pedagogy boring and irrelevant.Her interest needs to be aroused with audio-visual,and needs to see the reason for learning a particular topic.To make her sit down for hours going through just assessment books bought from Popular bookshop and still keep her interested would be mission impossible.