These are quick notes from Diana's presentation.
Who are these learners? Meeting student expectations drives decisions on campus.
Net Gen - grown up in tech intensive environment (ref Prensky 2003)
So what? Neuroscience research - environment in which you live hard wires the brain differently (Prensky 2001)
So who are these kids?
Age 6 and under - (Kaiser Family Foundation 2003) as much time on computer as playing outside. Not just middle class families - access to computers shows differences are not as large as many people believe.
teenage years - grow up and use net as resource for lots of things - partic. using tech as a communication device, e.g. messenging, IMs - know more screen names than phone numbers.
What do kids want from the net? Mostly to get interesting things (80%), learn more/better (70%), community (60%), show others what I can do (20%), Be heard (20%) (Grunwald 2003). Used to market researchers asking want they want, creates expectation for being asked for education too.
Net generation (Millenials, GenY) - born in or after 82. Cool to be smart, like tech, gravitate toward group activity (Howard & Strauss, 2003). 5 key characteristics - Digitally literate (not nec experts though), Mobile, Always on (to social network), Experiential (poss coz grew up with games), Social (relate to people and stay connected to people).
Hypertext minds - qualities and concerns (Prensky 2001); crave interactivity read visual images, visual-spatial skills, parallel processing BUT concerns short attention spans choose not to pay attention, reflection (lack), practice, text literacy, source quality.
Learning preferences - teams, P2P, like structure, engagement & experience, visual & kinesthetic (Studies into taking same course content in diff ways), things that matter (socially responsible, believe sci&tech can improve society)
Informal learning (Sheppard 2000, Dede 2004) - can be self-taught, learning in free time, learners construct their own courses
Non-traditional learners - so not a uniform population (NCES, 2003) - 43% 24+, 80% employed, 39% employed full-time, 10% of UGs have disability
More ESL learners than ever before
More adult learners - ave age 38, tend to be a woman
Swirling - students transfer or enrolled in multiple institutions at the same time (partic with online learning)
Generational comparison - but how do we look at the world?
Ask yourself:
Cntrl+Alt+Del is as basic as ABC
Never been a le to find the return key
Remembering turned over to technology
Go to meetings with laptop or pda
Constantly connected
Characteristics of sts v s faculty
multitask vs single
pics, sounds video vs text
random access vs logical sequence
interactive & networked vs independent & individual
engaging vs disciplined
spontaneous vs deliberate
today's students are no loger the people are ed system was designed to teach Prensky 2001
IT'S NOT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
Age vs online preferences (Dziuban, 2004) - sts who are very satisfied with web-based learning Net Gen lowest at 24%
What do you want in a learning environment? Roberts 2004
1. Faculty to have in depth understanding of discipline
2. Faculty to be able to use tech effectively - access o syllabus, course assignments (i.e. convenience and structure)
3. Don't overuse the tech - we don't want too much - meaning of powerpoint s to give power to a point not to do everything
In classroom environment (Kvavaik, 2004) - want mix of f2f and online
Multimedia literacy (Grunwald, 2004), text vs visual - see websites see NETHEADS ONLINE
How are we going to use the tech differently? MIT Augmented technology, simulations, environmental detectives f2f in real environment and online and GPS - they have a multimedia intelligence
We don't speak the same language (Prensky 2001)
Key concept of 1st person learning adapted deom Accenture 2000
lecture -> real object
Examples:
The Valley of the Shadow project
http://valley.vcdh.virginai.edu
(US Civil War site) from beginnings as digital collection to much much more
Online labs - MIT microelectronics lab
Simulations - Ancient spaces (archeology) - building up research/constructing own knowledge
How Active Learning and technology can enable - students learn from thinking, thinking is engaged by activity
4th point - importance of interaction (experiential and social) - computer labs tend not to be highly interactive as a learning space, PRS + concept inventories (threshold concepts in discipline) immediate feedback keeps students engaged, allows real-time modification of instruction
interactive devices - e.g. magic paper on a tablet
Reconfiguring space, curriculum and activities
SCALE-UP Beicher & saul 2003 - class time spent on tangibles and ponderables - students in teams and tables - results 20-30% improvement. Collaborative/Active learning principles employed.
Students learn all the time in formal and informal spaces (so how do we construct the informal spaces that allow learning)
Spaces can be very enabling but we need diff spaces for diff purposes - need informal spaces. Students watch lecture videos at home but come to campus to do their homework with peers (e.g what if we had e-whiteboards in corridors and you could email the results to the informal group?)
Principles to remember -
It is not technology alone
Interactivity
Knowledge construction
Formal & Informal
Adaptation - John Seely Brown calls them the remix generation/culture
How can we bring all these principles to gether to create appropriate and varied learning spaces
4 question we may want to ask
1. How well do we really understand our students?
2. How interactive are our learning environments/spaces?
3. Do we have an infrastructure for pervasive learning?
4. What types of spaces (onground and online) lead to greater learning? to greater community? How do/will we know?
Take time to create the future rather than defend the past.
