Week 1 - Am I a Digital Immigrant?

Digital nativism is the belief that those who have grown up in a world full of digital devices have a major advantage over the rest of us, not only in using those devices but also in the increased cognitive skills that using those devices allegedly confers.

Personal Research Objective:
Based on the latest research in neurobiology, there is no longer any question that stimulation of various kinds actually changes brain structures and affects the way people think.

There is also no doubt that children today are being socialized in a vastly different way than previous generations. One study stated that by the time the average child leaves college he would have spent over 10,000 hours playing videogames, sent 200,000 emails and instant messages, watched over 20,000 hours of TV, seen over 500,000 commercials and, maybe, at the very most, spent 3,000 hours reading books. (This study is now over three years old.)

Considering these facts, I am interested in investigating these so-called Digital Natives and uncovering what impacts new media might be having on their cognitive and social development. I will also explore what we can do as Instructional Designers to create products and curriculums that might help this new generation of learners to realize their full potential.

Over the course of this semester, I will attempt to answer these three questions:

1. Do you believe that we have to design, develop and deliver instruction differently for the so-called Digital Natives?
2. Are there differences in learning expectations and styles or can we just design good instruction and know that it meets all generational needs?
3. What are some of the current or theorized best practices for engaging and instructing digital natives?
   

To kick things off I decided to re-read the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Mark Presky that helped start the debate.

Here is his definiton of what makes up a digital native.

I’ve coined the term digital native to refer to today’s students (2001). They are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. I refer to those of us who were not born into the digital world as digital immigrants. We have adopted many aspects of the technology, but just like those who learn another language later in life, we retain an “accent” because we still have one foot in the past. We will read a manual, for example, to understand a program before we think to let the program teach itself.

Here is a video that provides an expression of who these children are.

Age 1- First commercial PC

Age 3 - First cell phone

Age 9 - Internet

Age 14 - Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. Built on engage and connect versus find.

Digital natives have always had access and engagement. It’s part of their reality.

Week 2 - Is Your Brain Different than Your Students'?

This week I have been doing a lot of reading about the concept of digital immigrants vs. digital natives. The theory is that through neuroplasticity and neural pruning, we have a generation coming forward that are fluent in digital technology.

In this fascinating study, UCLA scientists found that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry in the brain than during reading — but only in those with prior Internet experience.

Here is an interactive slideshow of the MRI's of patients in the study.

My Key Findings:

• In the Internet Naive group, there was little difference in brain activity between searching on Google and reading text. The reason, I suspect, was that the group was just reading the search results.
• But in the Internet Savvy group, a totally different story. Suddenly, many more parts of the brain started lighting up, including the parts governing decision making and the visual cortex. What this shows is that these users were using the results to help make decisions. They were fluent in search.
• One other interesting note. The increased activation in the visual cortex may indicate that searchers see the information differently. The information presented was exactly the same, with the same stimuli, but in the search savvy group, when they were scanning the visual stimuli as search results, they seemed to be more visually rich. I suspect that as we get more savvy with results, we scan more and read less, treating the results more like a picture.
  

My Key Concepts:

• The brain’s plasticity—its ability to change in response to stimuli from the environment—is well known. What has been less appreciated is how the expanding use of technology is shaping neural processing.
• Young people are exposed to digital stimulation for several hours every day, and many older adults are not far behind.
• Even using a computer for Web searches for just an hour a day changes the way the brain processes information. A constant barrage of e-contacts is both stimulating—sharpening certain cognitive skills—and draining, studies show.

This study seems to scientifically point to the fact that Digital Natives' brains are developing in different ways than previous generations. This has obvious impacts on how children learn and the teaching systems that we use to instruct them. One question this brings up for me is whether creating new styles of instruction that caters to this phenomenon and uses the same tools that are altering these children's minds is the answer. Or whether or not this is something that educational systems should try to counter-balance by providing learning environments that strive to quiet the digital noise using instructional materials that demand better attention-spans and less multi-tasking.

Week 3 - Can Video Games save Reading and Writing?

We have been talking about “Communities of Practice” in class lately. Some of the things that James Paul Gee mentions in this video clip concerning “Passion Communities” sound very much like COP’s to me. I have been reading his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. In it, Gee refers to these groups as “Affinity Groups.”

“Affinity Groups,” according to Gee, are made up of literate members of a particular group (Community of Practice) who can easily identify one another in ways non-members cannot. Only other people highly literate in the language of Star Trek for example, would know the difference between a person who understands what a “Delta Quadrant” is and a person who is trying to fake it by regurgitating a few key facts. Or should I say where the Delta Quadrant is.

He explains that when video game players interact in affinity groups online, they are developing an attitude toward critical learning. Gee argues that human learning is not just a matter of what goes on inside people’s heads, but is fully embedded in a material, social, and cultural world. For example, when a child has to face a new task or adapt to a new situation during the playing of a video game, she often has to seek out helpful tips or advice from more experienced players in order to better deconstruct the “embedded meaning” of the game. After engaging with an affinity group (COP), the player develops a deeper understanding of the game and now has a greater knowledge base with which to craft solutions to new tasks and challenges during game play.

The larger, more broad argument that Gee makes in the book is that playing video games is not a waste of time because learners learn how to collaborate and share experiences with others in new ways while they play. In the video clip above and in the book, Gee argues that Problem Solving and Collaborative Group Work are two of the most important skills to learn in order for students to compete in the modern world. Two skills that are not top priorities in the current education model.

Gee states:

"The group is smarter than the smartest person in the group."

This is a sentiment that I have noticed that many of the world's great leaders - CEO's, Presidents, entrepreneurs and coaches - talk about when they speak about the secret of their success. More often than not they talk about choosing smart, ambitious people who collaborate well and know how to work in groups. Then they give the group enough room to do their job and good things happen. Good things that they could never have accomplished on their own.

Three Questions:

Gee believes strongly that:
1. We MUST design, develop and deliver instruction differently for the so-called Digital Natives.
2. That there are major differences in learning expectations and styles between Digital natives and Digital Immigrants.
3. And in his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, he even provides a set of 36 learning principles that he believes could transform learning in schools, colleges and universities.

Week 4 - New Theories of Learning

I have been reading some very interesting ideas by James Paul Gee this week. He is very clear about the fact that he believes that most designers designing educational products do not know what they are doing. He says that what makes a game or anything else "interactive", is that the "interactive world" must be partially created by the player/learner through his or her own actions and decisions. Sounds like Constructivism. Also, he thinks that people are too hung up about learning “content” in the sense of facts. What we need people to be learning is how to think deeply about complex systems (modern workplaces, the environment, international relations, social interactions, cultures, etc.) where everything interacts in complicated ways with everything else, where bad decisions can turn into disasters. Games or other well designed interactive products - not as stand-alone learning tools—but as part of a whole learning curriculum - will eventually be crucial to this. These ideas are tailor made for products designed out of a Constructivist paradigm.

He suggests that we need to do away with the discrimination between formal and informal learning. That people (digital natives) are now living in multiple worlds, leading multiple lives, learning in many non-traditional, but powerful, informal ways. It is time for informal learning, for really the first time, to come to school and be intertwined with formal learning.

One last thing dealing with James Paul Gee. In his book, In What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, Gee talks about a learning cycle being evident in gaming that ought to be celebrated in formal educational settings: prope, hypothesize, reprobe, rethink. Despite its processual regularity, this sequence, according to Gee can be found across video gaming and science education.

Gee states, "Games, of course, reflect the culture we live in--a culture we can change." Constructivist idea? I think so. He claims, rightfully so, that playing games or designing games is a culture-changing force.

He says that games use one or more modalities (ie. oral and written language, images, equations, symbols, sounds, gestures, graphs, artifacts, etc.)." And this is what is needed in a 21st century educational paradigm.

I believe him. Three of the things that Constructivism calls for, and that are involved in active learning are: experiencing the world in new ways, forming new affiliations, and preparing for future learning." All of which are fundamental to the play of video games, or so argues James Paul Gee.

Here is Clay Shirky at Web Expo 2.0, 2008 talking about collaboration and the social shift it brings with it.

According to Clay Shirky, there are four scaffolded stages to mastering the connected world: sharing, cooperating, collaborating, and collective action.

These relate very directly to what we have been talking about concerning Constructivism. In trying to design my Instructional Project from a Constuctivist approach, I want to include these ideas and approaches in my product if possible.

Here is a list of some of the things that James Paul Gee and Clay Shirky argue should be included in a 21st Century learning paradigm that I want to include in my product:
It is never just about content. Learners are trying to get better at something.
It is never just routine. It requires thinking with what you know and pushing further.
It is never just problem solving. It also involves problem finding.
It’s not just about right answers. It involves explanation and justification.
It is not emotionally flat. It involves curiosity, discovery, creativity, and community.
It’s not in a vacuum. It involves methods, purposes, and forms of one of more disciplines, situated in a social context.

In trying to get my head around these things I decided to try and map out a comparison between traditional learning approaches and Constructivist learning approaches, I came up with this matrix:


I have identified a few design goals that I have for my Instructional product as a result of this weeks investigations.

Design Goals:

Provide access to rich sources of information using a variety of media.
Encourage meaningful interactions with the content.
Bring people together to challenge, support and/or respond to each other.
Facilitate Active Learning where the learner(s) consciously engage in meaningful activities that can be shared with others.
Discovery learning where learners discover facts and relationships for themselves.
Students will work in groups.

Week 5 - Are You Paying Attention: or Have We Jumped the Shark?

I think I have hit an emotional and intellectual wall regarding the hype around digital culture this week.

The above video is elegantly designed and shows how powerful film and video can be. But it hit me like straight propaganda shadowing a troubling truth. Not that the numbers aren't accurate. I've referenced many of the same figures earlier in this blog. But the assumptions it makes unnerve me.

The uncanny feeling started when the quote below came up:

In any given day, 68% of children under two will use screen media, for an average of just over two hours. (2:05)

Ok, fine, probably true. (Me)

Why?

It's obvious why. Caregivers need a break sometimes and plopping the kid down in front of Finding Nemo or The Backyardigans immobilizes them. Freezes them in their tracks so there is less chance that they will crack their heads open while you go make their lunch or check your email. (Me)

"Richness."

Richness! What a bunch of ^%#$&$*&^%!!!! (Me)

The digital proselytizing I'm wading through as part of this inquiry is getting to me. I entered the tent a believer, but bludgeoning me with the message only makes me suspicious of it.

Here are some of my less explicit musings for the week, including a design obstacle that I am facing, and an article about the Digital Undead of Great Britain.

Many professional thinkers - including Marc Prensky, James Paul Gee and Clay Shirky - have claimed that today's Digital Natives think and solve problems in different ways than previous generations. One observation that I’ve made is that playing video games and using other types of social media in a learning setting actually disrewards the kinds of thinking that previous generations were always rewarded for. If you think about it, what have you always been taught that shows you are a smart and hard-working person? I’d say that getting to your goal as fast and efficiently as possible is what has always been rewarded. Finishing the test as fast and as accurately as possible was the goal. But games and well-designed constructivist learning environments reward exploration, non-linear thinking, re-thinking goals from time to time, and not always blindly following the instructions or doing the most obvious thing all the time. Or at least it seems like they should be able to do those things.

Dawn of the Digital Natives

One of the hardest concepts to visualize in the creation of my Instructional product is how best to design it so that it can allow a learner to engage in authentic real-life learning tasks that can be found in real world contexts. And I'm trying to do it in a Flash-based product intended to live on the Internet.

I understand the idea is that the authentic task will help learners integrate their knowledge, skills, and attitudes into successful performances that can be more easily transfered into their daily life or work situations. But I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get that into my product about a mural. I've been reading a lot of design articles and flash-based design articles, but what I find is either instructional in nature and dull as hell, or beautiful in design but commercial in nature. I guess I'll just have to do something original. Like create the product that I wish I had been able to mess around with and learn from when I was a student. Oh, I'm still a student. So I guess I'll just make it for myself.