0.3 Digital learners: how are they expanding the horizon of learning  (Page 6/6)

Conclusion

The manner in which students are taught will not truly change until the manner in which we teach and evaluate students change. Multiple studies suggest moving students from consumers of information to producers of information. This, above all else is the key to engaging digital learning. However, until teachers are trained to expect and accept content gathered through social networks with emphasis on teaching students how to check validity and reliability of the web, the full power of the digital natives can not be released or expanded. Teachers must allow students to publish broadly then promote peer and expert outside evaluation. Digital immigrant teachers will require support and training before they feel competent to allow students the freedom to explore their full digital capabilities. The Digital Opportunity Measuring Stick 2005 [5] confirmed that the majority of America’s high school students are“digital natives”(Lazarus, Wainer,&Lipper, 2005). Research demonstrates that these new learners come to school with budding skills in new forms of literacy, possessing different strengths in cognitive ability, and finding motivation in different forms than did their predecessors. These new learners are instructed by teachers who, for the majority, spent childhoods engulfed in television programs that fed information for consumption, rather than interaction, omitting the choices and short snippets that lead to further discovery. New and different learning styles are evolving into new learning theories, new literacy, and new types of learners which research confirms are cognitively impacted by digital experiences. This will surely require educational facilitators to revisit and ultimately expand the horizon of educational content and delivery.

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Active Website

1.Edward DeBono (1967) (External Link)

2.Bricoleurs (External Link)

3.Bloom’s Synthesis Levels (External Link)

4.Shift Happens (External Link)

(External Link)

5.Digital Opportunity Measuring Stick 2005 (External Link)