Net Generation Learner

The National Science Foundation defines "cyberlearning" as "the use of networked computing and communications technologies to support learning." The report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation, identifies cyberlearning as having "…the potential to transform education throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning materials on any topic..."

The task force report identifies potential ways in which advanced computing and communications technologies might be leveraged to support learning, highlighting opportunities for further research. In it, the task force offers 5 recommendations for the NSF to pursue:

Cosponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), EDUCAUSE, and the University of Central Florida (UCF), the Students, Technology and Learning: Strategies for Success Conference (formerly the Key to Competitiveness) provides AASCU institutions with an opportunity to learn more about the next generation of students—a group with much greater expectations for the use of technology in higher education than previous generations. The event allows teams of presidents and senior institutional leaders to explore new ways of using technology to meet student expectations and more effectively serve the next generation learner.

This study was commissioned by the British Library and JISC to identify how the specialist researchers of the future, currently in their school or pre-school years, are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years' time. This is to help library and information services to anticipate and react to any new or emerging behaviours in the most effective way. In this report, we define the `Google generation' as those born after 1993 and explore the world of a cohort of young people with little or no recollection of life before the web.

They're your high-maintenance, entitled, technologically sophisticated and fickle new talent pool. Generation Y, a.k.a. the Millennials, is also potentially the most high-performing generation in decades. Here's the lowdown on what makes them tick and how to work most effectively with them.

What does it mean for students, faculty, and staff to be “net savvy”? Many are facile with music downloads, word processing, text messaging, or Web 2.0 tools, but are they really technology literate? What does it take to build a more net-savvy campus culture for students, faculty, and staff? Share your ideas, experiences, and questions in this dialogue on a topic of critical importance to the development of a community of responsible, self-directed, lifelong learners.

As international culture and commerce become increasingly reliant on visual communications, visual literacy has developed into an essential skill for 21st-century college graduates. With advancements in technology and the digitizing of information, digital literacy has also grown in importance. Digital visual literacy (DVL) is the ability to critically analyze digital visual materials, create effective visual communications, and make judgments and decisions using visual representations of thoughts and ideas. These skills, which actively engage our cognitive processing of visual images, have evolved from concepts at the intersection of a range of established disciplines. This session will discuss this exciting new literacy, showcase the free materials developed under a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education grant, and share recent feedback from instructors who have integrated these pioneering instructional modules into their courses. The discussion will benefit faculty, staff, and administrators infusing their curriculum with fresh IT skills.

Diana Oblinger explores the 'net generation' who can seamlessly move between their real and digital lives. Their behaviours, preferences and expectations may be very different from those of their teachers. Diana examines the characteristics of these learners, the possibilities offered by new technologies and the skills that an education system needs to provide for the 21st century. She also argues that we need to adapt to this rapidly evolving context and goes on to explore the implications for learning space design, assessment and learning and teaching.

Today's youth are digitally titillated, visually stimulated, and socially connected. To educate and engage this new breed of learners, institutions of higher education are revisiting and revising the basic tenants of a general education by asking, What does it means to be literate in today's society? As educators transform the way they teach and conduct research, IT leaders also must alter their institution's IT strategy to best support a mobile, global digital citizenry.

This research bulletin examines what the literature refers to as “new learners” or “critically engaged learners.” It explores the responsibilities our institutions have to create opportunities for these learners to actively engage in creative discovery, problem definition, and appropriate use of information technologies. It is based on a literature review and accompanying conceptualizations that begin to answer important questions about institutional development for a technologically sophisticated age.

Citation for this work : Moore, Anne H., Shelli B. Fowler, Brent K. Jesiek, John F. Moore, and C. Edward Watson. “Learners 2.0? IT and 21st-Century Learners in Higher Education” (Research Bulletin, Issue 7). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Today, in many circles the mention of knowledge management conjures up fears of complex IT systems (often equated with failure) or a new initiative (often associated with vague requirements). How do you develop a knowledge management program that incorporates the essence of organizational learning and knowledge sharing without new tools or systems? The Johnson Space Center has embarked on such a quest—to define a program that leverages the wealth of knowledge of 50 years of human space flight not only for today's workforce but also for generations to come.