Digital, Highly Connected Children: Implications for education.

Summary and Discussion

I have just presented facts on digital media consumption and internet usage by our youngsters. I also discussed two very opposing views of the new technologies and their impact on our children and youth. I pointed out to the very many beneficial activities of these youth on the internet and off-line.

In light of the above, it would be only logical to ask what are the implications of these for education?

Many educators are suspicious of the new technologies and especially of the internet, feeling that learning via the internet might not be real, thorough learning. They fear that the dangers that the Internet carries supersede its advantages. Many believe that using the new technologies might be of value only if it improves the teaching of math, English and other subjects which are part of the existing curriculum.

On the other hand, Don Tapscott, John Katz, Carol Tell and others remind us that ìInstead of providing an isolating and mind-numbing experience, technology is a creative and exciting tool that gives teens freedomóto express themselves, to get information, and to learn [25]

Observing the computer-and-Internet children, one can't help but realize that the old hierarchical structures of teachers-and-children and parents-and-children have disintegrated. In the new reality dictated in part by the new technologies we can't expect the ëhighly-wiredí children to adhere anymore to the old rules of time and place. We, educators, can't expect them to be satisfied with predetermined content material and subject matter. In this reality many of the concepts we teachers and educators grew up on are undergoing a major shift.

The meanings of "difficult," "easy," "first," "important," "unimportant," and "graded learning," are changing. The teacher is accustomed to a certain order, to learning and teaching in installments. The teacher's concepts are still based on adults' knowledge and ideas as to what is easy and what is difficult to learn. Curricula and books are still written according to these notions.

However, our N-Geners live, work and perform in a very different world which involves much doing. [26] Their world is complex, ungraded, multi-age, interactive and dynamic. In this environment the youngsters decide for themselves what is easy and what is appropriate. The N-Geners learn and research thoroughly that which they find interesting. They are the decision-makers as to pace, rate, content and the time element involved in the learning process.

The computer and the Internet have revolutionized the balance between the power of the adults and the status of children. The loss of authority on the part of the adults on the one hand and the new power held by children on the other, is ever changing the adult-child relationship in schools and at homes. This reversal of roles and "Power Shift" presents us with a probortunity [27] i.e.; a problem which is really an opportunity:

* to re-define the purpose of education
* to rethink our pedagogical beliefs and concepts; to reassess the theories we base our work on and whether they are appropriate to the Information Age.
* to let our highly digital learners guide us as to how to take advantage of the unique features of the computer to further develop and create new learning modes and environments. [28]
* to re-examine our criteria as to who "a good learner" is
* to create new criteria for quality and excellence of work in a digital, highly-connected environment
* to develop new ways to use the new technologies in order to foster and advance our thinking processes.

This, I think, is only part of our new task as educators. The other part, I believe, has to do with educating our youngsters in the strategies of digital literacy they are less knowledgeable of. Therefore, we have the probortunity and the responsibility to balance: * to balance the photo-visual literacy with the alphabetic literacy
* to balance the almost infinite accessibility to information with tools for screening and evaluating information
We also have the moral responsibility
* to be less busy with covering specific subject matter and to be more concerned about guiding our digital youngsters morally and emotionally on their voyage into the socio- emotional virtual and non- virtual space.

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References

[25] Carol Tell, Generation What? Connecting with Today's Youth
http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/199912/tell.html

[26] Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital,NY:Alfred A.Knopf.Inc 1995

Nicholas Negroponte points out that learning via the computer and the Internet is a new type of learning because it involves doing. Negroponte talks about new forms of learning: playing with information, learning through research because of a learner's desire to reveal new things in ways most appropriate to the individual learner.

[27] http://www.infinn.com/creativity/iitfullscreens.html

[28] "The kids really do know how to use the Internet and they want it to be exploited in the ways they know it can be exploited. Outside the classroom and outside of any formal instruction, the Internet is a key part of their educational instruction." Pew Internet and American Life Project August 2002
Yoram Eshet Alkalai, Digital literacy: A new terminology framework and its application to the design of meaningful technology-based learning environments
http://infosoc.haifa.ac.il/DigitalLiteracyEshet.doc

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