Changing fast, and Adapting

Learning about learning 

The week before last I gave a pre-reading assignment to my 6th graders.
We are reading "Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--The World's Most Dangerous Weapon" by Steve Sheinkin and before reading I gave students a vocabulary list to write down definitions in their own words.  I told students that they could use their devices, and computers to look up words.  I was expecting to see Google, dictionary.com, Wikipedia, etc.

What surprised me, was when fourteen of the twenty-five students pulled out their phones and said... "Siri what is -- theoretical physics?"

Needless to say, I learned how quickly technology changes, and about how readily my students adapt to the changes.