Seminar: Engage Me or Enrage Me with Marc Prensky
Perth, 31 May 2007

At this seminar, one of a series of events hosted by the West Australian Dept of Education and Training (with an associated Prensky Perth Wiki where the slides are available), Marc Prensky outlined his vision of the future of education. Drawing on his well-known ideas of digital natives and digital immigrants, he argued that the old paradigm of education, grounded in a late 19th century industrial model, is no longer working. He sees his role as listening to kids, something he says most educators are not doing. But for those who listen, he claims, the message is clear: kids are bored and do not feel sufficiently engaged or respected by their teachers. Educators need to adapt to the new paradigm which, he says, kids have already started on their own; it’s one where they learn by themselves (although with guidance) in an interactive, discussion- and community-based forum. In short, the way we teach needs to change.

Prensky also argues that programming is the key literacy of the 21st century and that kids are teaching themselves this future-oriented skill in their own time, while schools continue to try to orient them towards the past. This means that what we teach needs to change as well.

Technologies can’t just be an add-on, either. If we try to teach old content in the old ways, new technologies will do little to improve the state of education. Rather, a whole paradigm shift is needed. Teachers, he suggests, need to learn to teach with tools that they can’t fully master, and to work with the kids … where the kids look after the technology and the teachers look after evaluation and quality issues. And we should be making more use of the tools kids bring with them, notably mobile phones.

Of course, as Prensky himself noted when he referred to Dewey in response to a question, the notion of interactive education is nothing new. More than this, I’d suggest there is a real danger in the wholesale rejection, real or implied, of everything we’ve done educationally up to this point. I’d fully agree that we need to make use of the new technologies and tools, that we need to exploit the opportunities they present for teaching in more constructivist, interactive ways, and that we need to prepare students for the future – but I’d caution against abandoning some of the successful education practices of the past. After all, education is not only about entertainment, nor about communicating at lightning speed. It is also about taking the time for thoughtful investigation, careful reflection, and slow (re-)construction of knowledge and understanding. Good educators have always instinctively known how to combine interaction and reflection. The technological revolution gives us new tools for education, certainly, and it presents new advantages – but it also presents new problems. We must find ways to take a balanced view which is neither overly celebratory nor overly reactionary.

Nevertheless, Prensky presented a number of very interesting ideas and concepts. His illustrative quotes were particularly informative. Some of the most striking student views included:

• You look at technology as a tool. We look at technology as a foundation – it’s totally integrated into what we do.
• We want community.
• Email is for old people.