Week 1 - Activity 3 - Learning Styles

21st Century Learners

1.       What is your belief and understanding of the nature of today's learners? Is there substance to the "engage or enrage" argument?

Prensky’s research could be seen to be quite narrow-minded in assuming all “digital natives” to be able to use and find the use of ICT’s helpful in education. Thrupp (2010), however starts to delve into Prensky’s defined “digital natives” ICT-based and online behaviours to find that not all ICT’s are as useful to the dig-gen as first thought. Therefore, one should not assume that all “digital natives” find ICT’s useful in learning.

Thrupp’s findings on the matter as most of today’s learners are very diverse in background and behaviour. ICT’s to most of society today are seen as a device that’s just there, and therefore, do not realize that some student’s do not have the same access or exposure to the technology as others.

For instance one student may have their own laptop with Wifi and unlimited internet in their room and therefore can access the net and socialize with friends online all the time as opposed to a person having a family computer in the living room with capped internet and might not be allowed to use social networking sites. Therefore, it could be assumed that these two students have different exposure, abilities and mind-sets about computing and its use for socializing.

This of course is only a small example of two “digital natives” exposure to computing and the internet but one cold see how in a class of 25 net-gen students may have different abilities and beliefs about the use of ICT’s in an educational setting.

In Prensky’s “Engage or Enrage Me” article it could be seen how one would assume some student’s to be able to multi-task and succumb to boredom if used to working and processing information at quite a rapid rate without constant stimulus, new information and activities to work on. However, once again this seems to be a narrow-minded concept as some students can’t multi-task and can feel overwhelmed when asked to complete more than a few things at once, especially if they are having trouble completing or understanding a single task at hand.

There is substance to Prensky’s argument, which is to understand your student learning abilities and needs. Realizing that there are some students who will get bored if things get slow and monotonous where as there are others that will freak out if you over burden them with too much information and activities at once.

The moral to this story people is, do not assume, as it makes an ASS out of U and ME!