0.3 Digital learners: how are they expanding the horizon of learning  (Page 4/6)

Curricular Impact

A new type of literacy relying less on text, but requiring integration of images in the form of both graphics and video will be necessary for students to communicate effectively. Literacy no longer encompasses only what is taken in from presented material, but also includes the production of materials, such as the products yielded through Bloom’s Synthesis Level.[3] Written English language has evolved into two completely competing genres, the formal language of business and school, and the abbreviated and initialized version utilized in text messaging and other digital formats.

Educators have acknowledged the optimal time for learning content may be an internal process tied to individual development. Giving students a choice in how and when they learn content should also be considered within the curriculum. Information synthesis from multiple sources is required with evaluation leading to the production and communication of original thoughts. Though these skills have long been valued at the graduate study level, the sheer volume of new information [4] produced daily requires acquisition at a very early age.

Instructional Impact

The preponderance of random-access processes to discover information through multiple topics in multi-logical directions has rendered the more traditional instructional method of linear presentation dull and not at all motivating. Further, students accustomed to having their hands on the controls, so to speak, utilizing mostly the trial and error method of learning may feel that a traditional classroom is much like waiting in line for their turn at the wheel. Applying the theory of good gaming design to instruction with the learner being provided appropriate stimuli and allowed responses, and with reinforcement, both positive and negative immediately following each step could prove to be more motivating, thus more effective. Instruction delivered in such a manner that it places the learner inside the lesson rather than outside more closely aligns with digital natives’thinking.

Since memory has been found to have both visual and auditory components (Mayer&Moreno, 1998), multimedia enhanced instruction should improve retention. Emphasis on image and sound over text alone will more closely mimic the inputs most students receive outside of the classroom. The multi-dimensional nature of the digital world lends itself to network building. Social networks encompass a significant part of the world of an ever-increasing number of students at younger and younger ages. Harnessing the skill for reaching out to others may provide the ability to build informational networks with experts outside the classroom.

Suggestions/practical advice

Curricular suggestions. A review of scope and sequence for various subjects at various educational levels will reveal an emphasis on subject area information to be delivered to students within a particular timeframe. References to page numbers in texts that were probably outdated at time of publication (particularly in the areas of science and world events) guide teachers to curricular decisions that vary little from the same format utilized in schools since the industrial revolution. A response that would more closely take into account the curricular analysis herein would focus on process skills, incorporating a kind of“twitch speed”for learning. A scope and sequence that would determine information management, evaluation, and synthesis skills to be taught in a developmentally appropriate sequence would be a first step in changing traditional practice.