Teaching the Digital Natives

I love this quote from Steve Hargadon in April's TechLearning, so I'm just copying it verbatim. The bold-facing and paragraphing is mine.

You may think you don't have anything to teach the generation of students that seems so tech-savvy, but it really, really needs you.

For centuries we have had to teach students how to seek out information--now we have to teach them how to sort through an overabundance of information. We've spent the past 10 years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content--now we have to teach them to create appropriate content.

They may be "digital natives," but their knowledge is surface
level, and they desperately need training in real thinking
skills.

They live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them,
talking and texting on cell phones and connecting online. We may be afraid
to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted
waters without the benefit of adult guidance.

To do so we may need to change our conceptions of teaching, and
better now than later.