Net Generation Learner

Video and slides for this presentation can be found here. The speech is by George Siemens, Associate Director of the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. This plenary session is entitled, "Connectivism".

Joan Lippincott, associate executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information, contributed a video interview to the ELI 2007 Fall Focus Session, Being Net Savvy: Developing Skills for A Rapidly Changing World. Here's her description of it:

"My daughter, Meg Lippincott, a sophomore at Vassar College, has been working at her college library reference desk and occasionally sharing some observations with me about how students seek information for their academic work.  I interviewed her for a brief video for the ELI Focus Session on net savvy students.  Her friend Jan Zhan, a student at University of Maryland, did the camera work.  Meg discusses some aspects of information literacy, the way she learned to use some math software, and her definition of a 'net savvy student.'"  --Joan Lippincott

In this 12 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Leslie Dare, Director of Distance Education & Tech Services for Student Affairs at North Carolina State University. She presented a plenary session at the 2007 ELI Fall Focus Session entitled, "Keeping Pace with the Net Generation: A Student Affairs Perspective"

The student affairs division can be a valuable partner in developing a campus response to Net Generation issues. In addition to improving the “Net IQ” of staff on campus, student affairs can and should play a significant role in assessing the impact of technology on student development and behavior, crafting policies and procedures, and educating students about technology rights and responsibilities.

Wikipedia—a free, online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to and edit—is one of the most visited Web sites in the United States, with millions of articles in multiple languages. For a quick overview and the challenges and benefits it presents for teaching and learning, read 7 Things You Should Know About Wikipedia, the latest brief from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.

The Internet and a variety of emerging communication, visualization, and simulation technologies now make it possible to offer students authentic learning experiences ranging from experimentation to real-world problem solving. Explore authentic learning, what it is, how technology can support it, what makes it effective, and why it is important in Authentic Learning for the 21st Century: An Overview, by Marilyn M. Lombardi, ELI scholar-in-residence and director of the RENCI Center and senior IT strategist at Duke University. This piece is part of the ELI white paper series.

Summary: Net Generation Students and Campus IT: Supporting Student Success in the Age of Multitasking, Facebooking, and Instant Messaging

The session was recorded for podcasting and will be available as a part of the conference proceedings.

General Session
Southeast Regional Conference
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Atlanta, Georgia

In this 52-minute recording from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual meeting, we'll hear from Carie Windham in a session entitled Father Google and Mother IM: Confessions of a Net Gen Learner. Learn what goes on in the mind of a Millennial learner and how to bridge the generational divide.

During my recent stay in Singapore, I was reminded yet again of the ways in which the use of new technologies tends to highlight differences in national and social values. Like Australia, Singapore is currently beset by a moral panic surrounding young people’s use of online gaming. But the Singaporean response has differed significantly from that of its Pacific neighbour.

In December 2006, the local Singapore newspaper, the Straits Times, reported that a teenager had been arrested and sentenced to early military service for illegally accessing a neighbour’s unsecured wireless network. The boy’s parents, concerned by their son’s moodiness and declining academic performance, had decided that he was spending far too much time on gaming. Enough was enough: they unplugged the household modem. The boy’s response was to take his laptop outside one evening, wandering round the neighbourhood until he found an unsecured wireless network to tap into. There he was discovered by a neighbour, who confronted him and then called the police after the boy allegedly became aggressive. Then on January 17 2007, the newspaper ran a follow-up story: ‘Is there a gaming addict in your home’? The way in which one family’s issue was used to feed existing concerns about online gaming in Singapore, and to create an impression of gaming as a runaway social issue, was telling. 

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has taken on information fluency and Web savvy in the Net Gen age in three recent white papers:

• Ensuring the Net Generation Is Net Savvy
• Getting Past Google: Perspectives on Information Literacy from the Millennial Mind
• How Choice, Co-Creation, and Culture Are Changing What It Means to Be Net Savvy

As part of my continuing series of interviews leading up to the ELI 2007 Annual Meeting, I talked with Kate Wittenberg, Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia University, or EPIC. She will hold a featured session at the annual meeting on Wed., Jan. 24, from 8:00-9:00 AM entitled “While You Were Out: How Students Are Transforming the World of Information and What It Means for Publishing.”

In the interview, Wittenberg provides a brief overview of the new ways in which students are developing content and using information, and what that means for the development and management of information resources within the university. She also describes EPIC and how its efforts in digital content development reflect current and emerging trends in student creation and use of online content.