Net Generation Learners

Link to: Techfoot Speaking with Understanding About Net Gen Learners

When it comes to understanding the use of media in education and development, take a tip from the professor.

Christopher Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard Graduate School of Education says, “Don’t start with the technology, when you start with technology, it’s a solution looking for a problem.” He starts, instead, with learning styles. “No matter what age you are, your learning style can be shaped by the kind of media you use.” See article

With all the Net Gen Learner hype I think it is important to note that exposure plays an important role in shaping the processing styles of the individual. I relate to most of the traits listed for Net Gen Learners and I was born in 1957.

Over the next ten years, Dede predicts three major interfaces will shape how people learn.

1. The Desktop Interface. Already familiar to computer users, this tool offers access to distant experts and archives, and enables collaboration.

2. Avatars. This learning tool might be more familiar to kids today than to adults. Dede calls this “the Alice-In-Wonderland environment,” in which a self-created digital character interacts with other digital characters. Multi-user virtual environments, or MUVEs, are growing in popularity, and allow learners to transcend their physical selves and help design their own virtual environments.

3. Ubiquitous Computing. A growing number of mobile wireless devices (like cell phones and Palm Pilots) incorporate virtual resources into everyday life. “Smart objects,” says Dede, “make intelligent contexts.” Someday soon, cell phones might use their embedded GPS technology to provide a physical location to others with common interests.

John Norton of the Teacher Leaders Network has a great resource page for ideas such as these. It can be found at: http://www.teacherleaders.org/Resources/technology.html

Comments

[Rob]

Hey, just found you via John Pederson. You've got some great stuff up so far, and I'm looking forward to reading more. Chris Dede happens to be one of my profs this semester, and I just blogged about a Tapped In exercise from his class here, though it may be old hat for you: http://teacherslounge.typepad.com/teachers_lounge/2005/10/artificial_rest_2.html