Sunday, August 9, 2015

Lesson 5: Preferences of the Technology Generation

Lesson 5
Preferences of the Technology Generation
As society evolves, so do were the people particularly the learners. Today’s generation is referred as “Technology Generation” integrated to the industrial revolution and the swift technological advancements. We cannot deny the fact that there occurs the so called “generation gap” between the young and the older generations due to their different preferences thus, it is important in the field of education to know and recognize the varying preferences of the learners. The table below shows the contrasting preferences of the old and the new generation.

Table 1. Preferences of the Old and New Generation
I would also consider myself belonging to the new generation of learners. I started to learn operating the computer and cellphones when I was in kindergarten. I spend most of my time at my grandparents’ house who owned a desktop computer and had student boarders. As a kid, I usually play games on the computer and constantly borrows on the cellphones of the boarders. Nobody taught me how to operate these gadgets instead, I just watched and observed the people around me and imitate what they were doing and eventually I just noticed myself manipulating these gadgets at my own free will. I started to acquaint myself in internet surfing at elementary, owned my first cellphone at grade 5. In grade three, I transferred schooling in a rural area somewhere in Don Carlos Bukidnon where I can say that their mode of teaching the students was more on traditional method: gardening classes, spending most of our time in values education or vocational classes, we mostly read the books or copy what was written on the board until my hands were swollen, the teachers gave more focus on how the students would pass the tests and the rewards were given at the end of the school year through awarding of medals, ribbons and certificates. I could recall that I felt being sent to a primitive civilization for a punishment of some sort. I easily get bored in classes, lost my interest at school and preferred to cut class to watch movies at home or play games.
As I reflect at my experiences as a future educator, I felt the importance of discussing the differences in perceptions between the different generations and find methods to mitigate the occurring generation gap. Educators should be open minded to the changes brought by time, learn to become accustomed and accommodate to the products of change in our society and in the educational system. Teachers should never be held up of their pasts but rather ride to the modernizations and try to understand the different perspectives of the learners.

As an application of what I had learned from this lesson, flexibility and creativity is a must for the teachers to blend into the effects brought about by constant global changes.

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