The 21st Century Learner

I'd like to start with the basic premise that we, as educators, need to meet students where they are in order to teach them. This includes understanding their learning habits and preferences. Many students develop those habits and preferences in media rich home environments (computers, Internet access, game consoles, TVs, cell phones) long before beginning school. How does an educator plan engaging instruction for these students? What happens when they start to bring their technologies to school and expect to be able to use them? And, what happens when some students do NOT have access to these kinds of technologies before they reach school? How does this "digital divide" impact teaching and learning activities in a classroom?

This is a huge topic that may be best approached by breaking it down into several subtopics:

The Digital Divide

Who has access to technology and who doesn't? Where do the divisions fall? Some divisions are intuitive--there are socio-economic divisions, age divisions, racial, cultural, and ethnic divsions, and nationality divisions that we might expect to find given the realities of poverty, cultural attitudes, or state control of information. (Fortunately, the gender division, at least in the United States, has gone away.) But there are other less obvious divisions. For example, there is the issue of quality of access. Broadband Internet access allows for many more possibilities than dial-up access. (Think streaming video...) Knowing how to use technology effectively can create other divisions between the "haves" and "have-nots" in a digital world.

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The Digital Generation

What does it mean to grow up in a world in which digital technologies have always been present, and what does that suggest about learning styles and habits? What are the learning and work characteristics that we might expect to find among the offspring of the Baby Boomers, and how does that impact what we do as educators?

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Digital Citizenship

The issues of Internet safety, copyright, plagiarism, and netiquette are critical to modern educators. We are increasingly expecting students to spend at least part of their "school" time in the digital world doing research, communicating, and exploring. Do they know how to be safe there? Do they understand the issues of copyright and plagiarism in a medium that gives new meaning to "copy/paste?" Do they know how to conduct valid research or to differentiate between the quality of sources on they encpounter? Can they communicate effectively with people from different cultures? There are many ethical and legal questions abut which educators need to be informed.

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Media and Information Literacy

There are two current senses of media literacy: 1) how to understand media that is directed toward you from advertisers and other mass (and micro) media, and 2) how to create media to communicate and inform. Each is important to the 21st century learner and each has major implications for how teaching and learning happens in a classroom.

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Are there any more subtopics out there? Please feel free to add your own.