Summary of Next generation learners

In this session Phil Candy aimed to identify issues & themes, surprising findings, intriguing insights etc

His insights from the conference included:

*Attract or appeal to students from different backgrounds
*To empower, take control, overcome disabilities etc
*Social software
*Factors affecting uptake – personality etc
*Experiences of learners – relationships with resources & technologies
*Course design etc

Issues
*Student v learner
*Next generation - ? young
*? self directed learning
*Little on informal/ out of school
*Little on knowledge management

No surprises
*Terminology ICT etc not relevant to learners
*Appeal to some not others
*Some technologies fit some instruction - ? use in assessment
*Need seamless integration
*Needs to feel right


Intriguing insights
*Generational differences – not that important – more about personal characteristics
*Prefer instant messaging to email
*Need to look at what’s being used outside classroom to see how could work best in education
*Game playing in early life not influential in impact of game playing on ICT for learning purposes.
*Control may be a predictor of digitalness (locus of control stuff)
*Problems most about widening participation groups – bight students will use whatever
*Web2 technologies more fundamentally transformational than untethered or mobile technologies

*Technologies both creating communities & isolation
*May be using to reproduce models of community
*Separation of TV for entertainment to education ? same with web-based.

*Constructivist learning/own sense of world v learning outcomes

*Technology fluency may be temporary & situational

Divided into small groups – for discussions

Feedback
Lots of issues – from theoretical constructs to practical issues.

Conclusion
*A possible model of elearning
*Based on a study of self directed learning (what people do when no one is telling them what to do)
*Those with passion but not enrolled on formal courses

Report from:
www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/publications_resources/linking_thinking.htm
Linking thinking – Self-direction learning in the digital age

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