Kids these days….they’ve got it made. Sitting around listening to those ipods and sending messages on their blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. Now they’re encouraged to spend all day on the computer and take classes on the internet. Ha! I didn’t have internet when I was their age. Well, not until my Junior year of high school…but even then it was dial up and Netscape!
Okay, maybe I’m not old enough to start bitching about the younger generation yet. I just recently learned that I was born the year before the “Age of Digital Learners”. So I’m guessing that those of us who were born in 1982 and before are considered to be not-so-digital learners? How about, “Learners that can get by without using digital devices”? Maybe that puts my generation at an advantage.
So what are Digital Learners?
Just type in Digital Learners in Google and loads of articles will pop up. This YouTube video gives a nice introduction to the concept. It is also a great video to show your teacher friends that may be “lud-dites”
Pay Attention
One of our assignments in class was to read an article by Diana G. Oblinger called “Growing Up With Google – What it Means to Education”
It explains how students incorporate technology in their everyday lives, interacting and networking through social media sites, such as Facebook, Myspace, and Bebo. Students collaborate and co-create using blogs, forums, wikis, and podcasts. Virtual worlds allow individuals to express themselves in another form or “avatar” and interact with other users. The characters that are created either represent the person or possibly their alter ego. This gives individuals an opportunity to become more active in a virtual environment without the pressures of being judged in the real world. There is a lot of community involvement in the real world through collaborating and forming social groups in the virtual world.
The web is accessible almost everywhere in the world. Even in the most rural areas, you will find internet cafes, especially one right next to the other. Portable devices such as laptops and cell phones have access to the web and wi-fi makes it easier for more people to log on at the same time.
Teacher need to keep up with all of these digital devices and start incorporating them into their lessons. There are lots of applications to create animations and graphs to reach out to visual learners. The teachers can use constructive approaches by having students research and discover on their own certain learning objectives. Students can collaborate using tools they may already be familiar with such as wikis, blogs, or even Facebook and Twitter. This creates new learning spaces. Diana Oblinger describes space as “open opportunities for new pedagogies, interactions, and connections, particularly since wireless technology makes it possible for almost any place to be a learning space”. This includes
– designing space around learning rather than instruction
– creating socially catalytic spaces – places where people meet, congregate, and socialize
– integrating technology in spaces and putting services where students are
– involving users in the design of spaces.
The main point about the article is that we need to incorporate modern technology into learning because this is how we can reach out to the students. We cannot ignore that the web is incorporated into how people interact, collaborate, and operate. Although the older generation may not be too familiar with all of the modern technology and web 2.0 applications out there, the younger generation does not know what it was like living without the internet. With this in mind, we cannot assume we know what it is like being a student today, but we can do our best to mold education in a way that they can best understand it and help them grow.
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