Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for real learning. London: Corwin

I have always enjoyed reading Marc Prensky's writings where I have connected with his thoughts and ideas. I have to admit, I was rather disappointed when reading his 'Teaching Digital Natives' due to the lack of innovation and creativity that normal comes through in his writings. Marc is now putting forward the notion of 'Partnering for Real Learning' as if it were something new. He is making out that education is still sitting in the Victorian bubble where we lecture children rather than meet their immediate needs, teach programmes of study rather than use the contexts they thrive in outside the educational environment and have learning as a one way street where we fill empty vessels rather than 'partner' their learning. Is this new reading? Is this new theories of teaching and learning? I think not!

Student-centred learning, scaffolding, facilitating learning are not new buzz words or concepts they are practitioners' teaching and learning techniques that have been put forward for many years. They are techniques that I have used with and without technology. To me, all Marc has put forward in his book is to come up with a new buzz word: partnering. Why make new words when they all ready exists and work well: a bit of a slap in the face to him advocating that technology should only be used if it changes the learning and teaching environment rather than a bolt on!!!

To be fair on Marc, there are aspects of his book that align with today's thinking and will be a book that I would suggest to student teachers to read, reflect and debate.

Here are some of the key points that I took from the book:

INTRODUCTION SECTION

* Attention - today's students have a different attention capability than other generations. This is true and true for every new generation of learners. What needs to be noted is that today's generation are multi-tasters who select what they want to focus on and block out what does not interest them. So is it short attention spans for the 'old ways' of learning, as Marc asks, or is it short attention spans that need to be trained to be more focussed to enable deeper learning?

* What students want from schools - not to be lectured, respected, trusted, follow own interests and passions, create, work collaboratively, connect and 'real' education. Again I agree with many of these aspects but this is NOT new reading. As a qualified primary teacher, active learning and meeting the needs of children were at the heart of my pedagogy; that was last century! I have always wanted children to create, collaborate, communicate and co-create with their immediate peers and those around the world. I do believe that we should let children follow their interests and passions but we need to open the doors to other avenues that might spark another interest rather than just keep a child in an 'interest bubble'. Learning is about meeting needs then extending and exploring.

Marc states that the new educational pedagogy should involve 'partnering' to enable the above. Yes that is true but again not a new concept.

CHAPTER 1 PARTNERING

Direct Instruction - teachers who lecture, talk and students listen, take notes, read and memorise. Again the term 'direct instruction' comes in many titles: didactic teaching or passive learning to name a few. Although not a new concept, what I did like was Marc's analogy of this style of learning where he referred to it as the Federal Express where 'you can have the best delivery system in the world, but if no one is home to receive the package, it doesn't much matter. Too often, today's students are not there to receive what their teachers are delivering' (Prensky, 2010:10). How often I see this in a lecture theatre where students are there but the information being delivered is not reaching the recipients. A scenario in many learning environments and one which Marc states can be changed by students and teachers adopting different roles in the 'partnering' process: student as researcher, technology user/expert, thinker, world changer, self-teacher and the teacher as coach/guide, goal setter/questioner, learning designer, context provider, and quality assurer. As you can see, not ground breaking theories of learning just written with Marc's twist of wording!

The rest of the chapters delve deeper into the ways partnering can occur in education looking at 'how' children learn today rather than how they interact with technology. If you are looking to read about ways to 'use' technology with our 'Digital Native' then this is possibly not the book you want to read. If, on the other hand, you want to look at 'how' today's 'Digital Natives' learn then this might be a book to read in conjunction with the key theorists in education to provide a balanced approach rather than a one sided view.