Growing+Up+Digital

toc =//Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation// by Don Tapscott = Article Presentation by MACKK: Matthew Mckenzie, Amanda Peronto, Corin Serrano, Kevin Bui, Kathy Fu

The Demographic Revolution Meets the Digital Revolution
For the past 3 decades, the demographic majority of the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has been the Baby Boom (anyone born 1946-1964). Today's new generation of "Baby Boomers" is referred to as the Net Generation, which has an estimated 88 million under the age of 20 in US & Canada. At the heart of the new digital media culture, this generation, also referred to as the N-Geners, has utilized digital mastery as a force for social transformation. By embracing interactive media (Internet, CD-ROM, and video games), N-Geners have changed the way children gather, accept, and retain information.

Their Media Usage
Kids in the N-generation are beginning to stay away from the current/past generational technology. Recent technology stems from a top-down system where the top executives are control and access to the internet “depends upon a distributed, or shared, delivery system” instead of a hierarchical one.



From Broadcast Learning to Interactive Learning
Computers in schools as of today are mostly used for teaching basic skills instead of harnessing new technology and use it for interactive learning.

The Technology of Interactive Learning
Don Tapscott first experienced Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) in the 1970s. He was part of an online class set up by Dr. Steve Hunka to show how interactive learning could be used in education. Back in the ‘70s, CAI and specifically the package Pluto, showed Tapscott how CAI and interactive learning could be customized to the student. CAI showed promise however the programs could not take off because of high costs and amount of work required to create and implement the courseware. CAI also represented a huge cultural shift in teaching and learning.

 Soon CAIs began to take off as more people were interested in the World Wide Web. Ron Owston designed an online course at York University where he put assignments and their corresponding readings online. He also included electronic seminars that were available to each student. People that took the course argued the class was brilliant and helped them become “internet literate.” Students enjoyed the interactivity and connections with others. This was an early example of peoples’ responses to the World Wide Web and its use for education.

In order to prove that CAIs were as good as traditional lectures, two classes from California State University in Northridge were split up. One class was taught online through CAI, and the other from a traditional lecture. The two classes were fundamentally the same and were tested on the same material. The online class scored, on average, 20% higher on exams. These students enjoyed the interactivity and contact with the other students. They had greater flexibility in how they learned and the pace at which they learned. This helped usher in more use of CAIs and helped legitimize them as a source of technology for interactive learning.



8 Shifts of Interactive Learning
Tapscott explains that there are eight shifts to Interactive Learning that will allow educators and students to switch to a new more effective paradigm of learning:

1. From Linear to Hypermedia Learning
Traditional learning is linear, meaning that it is taught from beginning to end. For example, textbooks, novels, instructional videos that are used in school are typically taught from beginning to end.

However, with the progression of the Net Generation, learning is now more interactive and non-sequential. Tapscott gives the example of his children going back and forth between watching TV and playing video games to illustrate their ability to multitask between different technologies.

Tapscott also cites examples from the N-Gen sample children who when asked to surf the net, were seen participating in several activities at once. For example, one N-Gen child named Robert looked up the movie Independence Day and followed fans’ page links to several websites.

 2. From Instruction to Construction to Discovery
With the rise of interactive learning, there is a shift away from the pedagogy and the profession of teaching towards a creation of learning partnerships. According to Seely Brown the previous pedagogy focuses on “optimizing the transmission of the information,” however, what is being seen is that kids want to learn by doing. Learning, therefore, takes on an experimental element. Tapscott infers that teaching should be designed in partnership with learners.

Tapscott describes this new view on learning as the constructivist approach, where the learner constructs knowledge anew. The constructivist approach preaches that people “learn best by doing rather than simply being told” (Tapscott, 2011). He illustrates the difference between an instructionist and constructionist with the example of how an instructionist would make a game to teach a child multiplication, but a constructionist would have the child invent the game.



3. From Teacher-Centered to Learner-Centered Education
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The advancement of new media enables learning that is centered on the individual rather than the instructor. Tapscott claims that learner-centered education motivates a child’s desire to learn. “In the past, education has tended to focus on the teacher and not the student…Much of the activity in the classroom involves the teacher speaking and the student listening” (Tapscott, 2011). However, new media gives a method by which educators can focus the education more on the student.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While the teacher is no longer the focus in this method, they are still fundamental to this approach to learning as they are the ones that will be creating and structuring the learning experience.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Learner-centered education begins with an evaluation of the abilities, learning style, social context, and other important factors of the student that affect learning (Tapscott, 2011).” It would then use software programs that would aid in structuring a child’s learning experience.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4. From Absorbing Material to Learning How to Navigate and How to Learn
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This shift includes learning how to synthesize material, not just learning how to analyze it. N-Gen learners are able to engage in material on the Net and then are able to construct higher level structures and images concerning this information.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tapscott references the Educom vice president Carol Twigg’s assertion that educators can no longer “prepare students to live in a world of rapid change” by pushing information at them (Tapscott, 2011). Rather, students must learn how to synthesize, and engage in information.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. From school to lifelong learning
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Richard Soderberg of the National Technological University puts it well: ‘People mistakenly think that once they've graduated from university they are good for the next decade-when they're really good for the next ten seconds.’”

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">People used to go to school in order to learn what they needed to be successful in life. They knew they would have to adjust to new information every once in a while, but believed that the knowledge they acquired from school would help them at least for 10 years or more. Now with knowledge easily accessed on the internet, people learn new information every day. Schools must teach the Net Generation to adapt quickly and efficiently to new technologies and ideologies in order to successfully “[enter] a world of lifelong learning from day one”.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. From one-size-fits-all to customized learning
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Industrial Revolution helped promote learning for all. With it came the idea of teaching students in groups. Grades were created based on age. The grade the student was in determined the knowledge they would receive. This type of one-size-fits-all educational philosophy worked during the Industrial Revolution, it does not work today in the Information Revolution. Digital media has changed how students receive knowledge.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“As Papert puts it: ‘What I see as the real contribution of digital media to education is a flexibility that could allow every individual to discover their own personal paths to learning. This will make it possible for the dream of every progressive educator to come true: In the learning environment of the future, every learner will be 'special.'’”(Papert, 1997).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7. From learning as torture as learning as fun
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Schools are not a place where many students want to go because it is not entertaining. However, educating students does not mean that the students cannot have fun. In fact, entertaining students can actually help engage them. Students will be excited to learn if they feel like it is not a chore but instead a challenge to do so. “Using the new media, the learner becomes the entertainer and in doing so builds enjoyment, motivation, and responsibility for learning.”



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8. From the teacher as transmitter to the teacher as facilitator
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students from all over the world are learning new information every day. Information that is boundless. Teachers are no longer the ‘keepers of knowledge’ because it would be impossible for them to know everything one can attain through media. “The teacher is not an instructional transmitter. She is a facilitator to social learning whereby learners construct their own knowledge.” “Needless to say, a whole generation of teachers needs to learn new tools, new approaches, and new skills.” Teachers need to be able to help students navigate this new world.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Citations
Tapscott, D. (1998). //Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation//. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from https://eee.uci.edu/13y/12280/articles/Growing Up Digital.pdf

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