Comments on: It’s all about millennials – or is it? http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/09/10/its-all-about-millennials-or-is-it/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:31:20 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Mark Bullen http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/09/10/its-all-about-millennials-or-is-it/comment-page-1/#comment-19135 Mark Bullen Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:29:47 +0000 http://www.tonybates.ca/?p=2290#comment-19135 Tony, Thanks for raising this important issue. After thoroughly reviewing the literature and conducting our own research at the BC Institute of Technology we have come to many of the same conclusions as you. Generation is not the issue. This doesn't mean that our learners are not using new technologies and that we can ignore the changing technological landscape. It means we need to work harder to understand the phenomenon. Digital technologies are creating significant social and economic change but we do not fully understand what the impact on education will be. Unfortunately too many educators have blindly accepted the simplistic prescriptions of consultants and futurists that its all about generation and that the answer is simple: more technology. Some institutions are already making costly decisions based on this uninformed rhetoric. The BC Institute of Technology, the University of Regina and the Open University of Catalonia have launched the Digital Learners in Higher Education research project which aims to get a better understanding of this issue. Your readers can learn more at: http://digitallearners.ca and http://netgenskeptic.com Mark Tony,
Thanks for raising this important issue. After thoroughly reviewing the literature and conducting our own research at the BC Institute of Technology we have come to many of the same conclusions as you. Generation is not the issue. This doesn’t mean that our learners are not using new technologies and that we can ignore the changing technological landscape. It means we need to work harder to understand the phenomenon. Digital technologies are creating significant social and economic change but we do not fully understand what the impact on education will be. Unfortunately too many educators have blindly accepted the simplistic prescriptions of consultants and futurists that its all about generation and that the answer is simple: more technology. Some institutions are already making costly decisions based on this uninformed rhetoric.

The BC Institute of Technology, the University of Regina and the Open University of Catalonia have launched the Digital Learners in Higher Education research project which aims to get a better understanding of this issue.

Your readers can learn more at:
http://digitallearners.ca

and

http://netgenskeptic.com

Mark

]]> By: Pedro Fernández http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/09/10/its-all-about-millennials-or-is-it/comment-page-1/#comment-18360 Pedro Fernández Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:47:43 +0000 http://www.tonybates.ca/?p=2290#comment-18360 Dear Tony, thank you for your always interesting and engaging thoughts on the topic. I have read Prensky's articles about digital natives and digital immigrants and have to say that his arguments caused in me both fascination and scepticism. The lack of empirical evidence for important behavioural changes in learners that have been largely exposed to ICT seems to be quite obvious, but at the same time I have to say that my day to day contact with students in a range of 17 to 25 years draws a clear picture of an increased need of variety and speed in the process of learning. I have very little doubts of the spontaneous acception and the capacity of use of a large variety of sources of information as a powerful complement to the teacher and his textbooks in this group of learners. I can also observe a clearly natural and spontaneous use of communication tecnology in order to share resources or to organise episodes of collaboration. The result of this might not be an automatic increase of collaborative or cooperative learning in comparison with the reality we might have experienced in our own learner history, but I can see that the possibilities of shared and instant access to resources and information and the amount of opportunities of forming spontaneous and maybe quickly changing communities or groups of co-learners might represent an environment that nurtures the feeling of a lack of coherence when ICT savvy students see themselves stuck in an educational environment that does not take such possibilities into account. I can easily imagine that the increased skills in Internet surfing, social networking and computer gaming do not automatically lead to improved learning skills. But I do not think that authors like Prensky defend such a theory, but rather believe that it is claimed that the mentioned skills should be exploited in order to improve learning processes and outcomes, in the same way as any other previous knowledge or skill of a learner should determine to a certain extend the way he or she is "taught". Pedro Fernández Michels Dear Tony,

thank you for your always interesting and engaging thoughts on the topic.
I have read Prensky’s articles about digital natives and digital immigrants and have to say that his arguments caused in me both fascination and scepticism. The lack of empirical evidence for important behavioural changes in learners that have been largely exposed to ICT seems to be quite obvious, but at the same time I have to say that my day to day contact with students in a range of 17 to 25 years draws a clear picture of an increased need of variety and speed in the process of learning. I have very little doubts of the spontaneous acception and the capacity of use of a large variety of sources of information as a powerful complement to the teacher and his textbooks in this group of learners. I can also observe a clearly natural and spontaneous use of communication tecnology in order to share resources or to organise episodes of collaboration. The result of this might not be an automatic increase of collaborative or cooperative learning in comparison with the reality we might have experienced in our own learner history, but I can see that the possibilities of shared and instant access to resources and information and the amount of opportunities of forming spontaneous and maybe quickly changing communities or groups of co-learners might represent an environment that nurtures the feeling of a lack of coherence when ICT savvy students see themselves stuck in an educational environment that does not take such possibilities into account.
I can easily imagine that the increased skills in Internet surfing, social networking and computer gaming do not automatically lead to improved learning skills. But I do not think that authors like Prensky defend such a theory, but rather believe that it is claimed that the mentioned skills should be exploited in order to improve learning processes and outcomes, in the same way as any other previous knowledge or skill of a learner should determine to a certain extend the way he or she is “taught”.

Pedro Fernández Michels

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