Educating the Net Generation - A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy

Some interesting findings out of a recent Australian report on the Net Generation:

http://fm.schmoller.net/2009/06/effortful-educating-the-ne-t-generation-a-handbook-of-findings-for-practice-and-policy.html

http://www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/handbook/NetGenHandbookAll.pdf

Six headline findings, from the executive summary:

1. The rhetoric that university students are Digital Natives and university staff are Digital Immigrants is not supported.

2. There is great diversity in students’ and staff experiences with technology, and their preferences for the use of technology in higher education.

3. Emerging technologies afford a range of learning activities that can improve student learning processes, outcomes, and assessment practices.

4. Managing and aligning pedagogical, technical and administrative issues is a necessary condition of success when using emerging technologies for learning.

5. Innovation with learning technologies typically requires the development of new learning and teaching and technology-based skills, which is effortful for both students and staff.

6. The use of emerging technologies for learning and teaching can challenge current university policies in learning and teaching and IT.

US Dept. of Education: Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online

http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/07/01/meta-analysis-is-blended-learning-most-effective.aspx

http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/07/21310n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

US CIO Kundra Calls for Web 2.0 Co-Creation of Knowledge With Citizens

From Read/Write Web:
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The US Government's Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, called today for a radical new approach to government information technology, focusing on utilization of consumer-type Web 2.0 tools that can "tap into the vast amounts of knowledge...in communities across the country."
"We've got to recognize that we can't treat the American people as subjects but as a co-creator of ideas," Kundra was quoted as saying by Government Computer News writer Wyatt Kash today. "We need to tap into the vast amounts of knowledge...in communities across the country. The federal government doesn't have a monopoly on the best ideas."
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Cable’s commentary:

We need to ask the same question in higher education:

• “How can we tap into the vast amounts of knowledge...from students, faculty and other experts and potential learners globally?”

• "We've got to recognize that we can't treat the students as passive recipients of knowledge but as a co-creator of ideas.”

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

"This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves…"

Wired Article

David Wiley's comments

FIVE QUESTIONS...For George Siemens

http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=78-1