A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation

A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation

Ronald Noel Beyers

Young Engineers and Scientists of Africa Programme, Meraka Institute, Pretoria, South Africa // ron@yesa.org.za

Beyers, R. N. (2009). A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (4), 218–227.

This paper proposes a multi-dimensional concept model of an ICT enabled classroom to highlight potential similarities and differences between where teachers perceive themselves relative to their learners.

This is a generation that expects to actively participate in and through their media, hence the decrease in time spent by teens in viewing television and the corresponding increase in time spent on computers, gaming, and the Internet. Our children now have at their fingertips a virtual world – with all its promises and pitfalls (Lemke, 2003:5).

One of the problems that many societies are facing especially where there is a transition from an

industrial and manufacturing based economy to a knowledge society, is the rate of change. The world that they were prepared for may no longer exist.

On the other hand ‘wiring the schools and populating them with computers is necessary but insufficient to ensure equal opportunity to share in the digital revolution’ (Tapscott, 1988:262). They need a redesigned education system and teachers who have been retrained and reoriented. Innovative technologies cannot make up for educational professionals who lack innovative methods and merely replicate learning models that don't work (Hooper, 2002).

Individuals raised with the computer deal with information differently compared to

previous cohorts: they develop hypertext minds, they leap around (Prensky, 2001).

Jean Piaget’s constructivism is an epistemological view of knowledge acquisition emphasizing knowledge construction rather than knowledge transmission and the recording of information conveyed by others. The role of the learner is conceived as one of building and transforming knowledge (James, Applefield, & Mahnaz, 2001).

Constructionists believe that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs when children create products or artefacts. They assert that learners are more likely to be engaged in learning when these artefacts are personally relevant and meaningful (Bhattacharya & Han, 2001).

Imagine classrooms that incorporate more videos and video games, classes that meet electronically to fit students' schedules, students who choose to learn from each other rather than a professor, and courseware, search engines, and library databases that are animated, image-based, and interactive (Carlson, 2005).

A Proposed Conceptual Model

It is envisaged that the model could provide educators with the means to comprehend the ‘differentness’ and ‘complexity’ of the net generation. A tool to graphically plot individuals within this 5D model is being developed which will serve to highlight similarities and differences between teachers and pupils especially where ICTs are deployed in the classroom. The intention is sensitize teachers to this information so that they are encouraged to grapple with these issues to better understand them for the benefit of their learners.

1. The First Dimension – X Axis (Survival Strategies)
2. The Second Dimension –Y Axis ( Knowledge and Comprehension): knowledge is not scarce, but meaning-making is
3. The Third Dimension –Z Axis (Spatial Orientation): the ability to fly, not just drive. The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done (Burkhalter, McLean, & Jones, 2004:50). Attempting to discover what students think in relation to the problems on hand, discussing their misconceptions sensitively, and giving them situations to go on thinking about which will enable them to readjust their ideas (Bell, Diagnosing students' misconceptions, 1982:6-10). Creative thinking, group problem solving and decision making, as well as the capacity to learn more and more efficiently and effectively which is inherent in 21st century skills. This means that a more sophisticated view of knowledge and learning is required than the one held in the previous industrial era because the economy is now based on selecting, processing and applying information and creating new knowledge and applications (Miller, 2000a).
4. The Fourth Dimension – Time: Extending the learning process beyond the confines of the core curriculum and the walls of the classroom should be the goal of all educators to overcome the time constraints imposed by traditional classes and restrictive timetables. Emphasis is on communications including both synchronous and asynchronous methods. Students are able to access the wisdom of experts around the world and receive an answer in a relatively short period of time.
5. The Fifth Dimension – Global vision: Teachers acting as gatekeepers of knowledge are threatened by the perception that learners may know more than them. Educators on the other hand strive to release these learners to construct their own knowledge so that the educator can focus on those individuals who really need their attention. Adaptability is a key facet of this stage for without it teachers are doomed to remain in a two-dimensional text-book bound world A key characteristic of the fifth dimension also involves group work and a division of labour where learners are challenged to explore lateral thinking, creativity, problem solving and innovative types of challenges. It is essential that learners are provided with real-world tools and real-world scenarios.

Implications for Teaching & Policy-Making

It is recommended that policy makers acknowledge that the vast majority of teachers are becoming burdened with administrative matters and are unable to find the necessary quality time for personal professional growth. If they are not exposed to the benefits of new approaches to education, they will continue to practice teaching in the tried and trusted armchair approach and not actively encourage learners to develop essential 21st century skills.

Learning Communities are not simply another educational fad or a modest type of school reform but an attempt to rebuild society's educational system on a post-modern cultural foundation that is democratic and person-centered rather than mechanical, as well as ecological and life-centered rather than driven exclusively by economic forces.

Implications for the Learner

learners can and must take greater responsibility for their own learning. Leaving learners to their own devices is not being advocated. On the contrary. The educator must still be in control of the process, but their role is more a facilitator rather than physically dictating what happens

at the learning interface where there is greater emphasis on self-discovery after the basic skills have been acquired.

Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

"The key question for me is whether we need content in order to start learning or whether content is the by-product of an effective learning experience"

"Leaders face a large scale rebalancing of education. They need to find new points of balance: between teacher/learner, planning/emergence, organized/complex, top-down/grassroots. The entities that will shape our future are already in play. It’s about new and novel combinations, finding new states of relatedness."

Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are the three broad learning theories most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments. These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology. Connectivism emphasizes that learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing. A central tenet of most learning theories is that learning occurs inside a person. Even social constructivist views, which hold that learning is a socially enacted process, promotes the principality of the individual (and her/his physical presence – i.e. brain-based) in learning. These theories do not address learning that occurs outside of people (i.e. learning that is stored and manipulated by technology).

Some significant trends in learning:

• Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime.
• Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks.
• Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same.
• Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking.
• The organization and the individual are both learning organisms. Increased attention to knowledge management highlights the need for a theory that attempts to explain the link between individual and organizational learning.
• Many of the processes previously handled by learning theories (especially in cognitive information processing) can now be off-loaded to, or supported by, technology.
• Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed).

We derive our competence from forming connections.A network can simply be defined as connections between entities. Computer networks, power grids, and social networks all function on the simple principle that people, groups, systems, nodes, entities can be connected to create an integrated whole. Alterations within the network have ripple effects on the whole.

Principles of connectivism:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process.

The starting point of connectivism is the individual. Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual. This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.

The notion of connectivism has implications in all aspects of life:

• • Media, news, information. This trend is well under way. Mainstream media organizations are being challenged by the open, real-time, two-way information flow of blogging.
  • Personal knowledge management in relation to organizational knowledge management
  • Design of learning environments

Revisiting piaget and vygotsky: In search of a learning model for technology education

Verillon, P. (2000). Revisiting piaget and vygotsky: In search of a learning model for technology education. Journal of Technology Studies, 26(1), 3-10.