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As I sat and watched the video //Did You Know// I made an instant connection to a recent PD I attended. Highland Middle is now an IB candidate school and last January I attended a three day conference in Los Angeles. The entire focus was international mindedness and the implications in the classroom. And of course, technology was the universal tool that all schools used to link together this educational philosophy. During the introduction of the conference they showed a YouTube clip that focused on our students in the future. The video gave some startling statistics about what the future does in fact hold for our current students. The one that REALLY stood out to me was: **The jobs that our students will hold don’t even exist yet**! I couldn’t even begin to fathom this, so what do I teach? From this point on my mind started racing about this conundrum. The only answer that I can come up with was: don’t let technology leave me behind. I have just missed the digital native age, well missed by about seven years, and I didn’t want to become the type of educator who was afraid of technology. So instead I have embraced it. This new philosophy has added that extra connection with my students in the classroom. Anyone who teaches middle school understands that this is ESSENTIAL to a successful classroom. So now I sit working on my Rank I in technology for myself and them!

Introduction to Teaching Digital Natives Reaction: After finishing the introduction to //Teaching Digital Natives// I again made a real connection to the IB program we are adopting at Highland. IB teaches us that as educators we are no longer teachers, but instead, facilitators of knowledge. This is the same philosophy that Prensky is describing in his term “partnering” and his semantics made a real connection in my own teaching and learning style. I constantly tell the students that I do not know everything, contrary to popular belief (that is among students). I am just here to help them with metacognition, thinking about thinking. I am constantly modeling my thinking for them in hopes that they will see that learning requires ACTIVE participation. I think this concept of partnering will really flow smoothly into my teaching style and unlike many educators I don’t mind giving up the control. The students need to discover their own metacognition and from there the world is at their fingertips, both figuratively and literally (with the birth of these digital natives).