April 8, 2008...10:19 am
Student learning through technology
The ‘Google Generation’ – young ‘digital natives’ who make up the bulk of university applicants - make widespread use of social networking tools but don’t believe in technology for technology’s sake and strongly believe in face to face interaction.
These are some of the findings of research commissioned by JISC and undertaken by Ipsos MORI last year which is feeding into an independent committee of inquiry on the changing learner experience.
A session on ‘student learning through technology’ heard from the committee’s chair, Professor Sir David Melville, former Vice Chancellor of Kent University and Chair of Lifelong Learning UK, about the work of the committee. Sir David began by saying that the point of the inquiry, which is backed by the leading education organisations in the UK, is to explore the assumptions of the Google Generation, their ready and quick adoption of new, interactive – or Web 2.0 - technologies, and the impact of these phenomena on higher education.
Web 2.0, said Sir David, ‘is about that part of the web which is defined by those who access the web.’ It is ‘universalizing and globalizing’ student conversations which had previously been local, something that is profoundly changing learning and teaching in all education sectors.
The committee, he continued, includes not only representatives from universities but the commercial sector, student bodies and further education. It hopes to report later this year and will explore not only the impact of social networking on learning and teaching but will also take into account its use in schools, colleges and company training.
Amanda Jefferies of the University of Hertfordshire who is working on the JISC-funded STROLL project, looked at some of the issues faced both by students and by institutions in striving to unlock the potential of the new technologies. ‘Do our learning environments support their aspirations for learning?’ she asked.
Staff development was an important and perhaps neglected issue, suggested one questioner; while students are readily adopting new technologies, persuading staff to do so is proving more difficult. Another asked about the use of spaces such as café and other recreational spaces to support the new broader concept of learning that the adoption of new technologies seemed to presuppose, while another asked about the increasing requirement for open access learning and teaching resources.
The panellists were Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary of JISC, and David Sadler, Head of Networks at the Higher Education Academy, who responded by pointing to JISC- and Academy-funded work, particularly the Benchmarker and Pathfinder programmes and JISC’s Effective Design for Learning publication, which attempted to answer some of these questions. They suggested that if further work was needed in any of these areas, they would be happy to listen to suggestions.
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