Young learners have been multi-tasking since they were toddlers. Whether listening to music while studying, instant messaging while in the classroom, downloading music and movies while surfing the web or speaking on the cell phone while writing a paper, digital natives are at their core parallel processors of information.
Digital learners have also grown up during a time when the concept of linear thinking is as dated as horse carts for transportation. New media has created a generation of learners who deviate from a single path approach. Hyperlinks, CD-Rom’s, DVD’s, DVR’s, iPods and the structure of the Internet in general gives today’s learner access to a breadth and width of resources that has never existed before. They can access the content in an intuitive non-linear fashion. Most kids today have never even seen an LP or a cassette tape. To them the notion of having to fast forward through all the content on a VHS tape in order to get to the final scene of a movie would seem archaic. To them the term, “be kind, rewind” has no meaning. After all, what in the world would you need to rewind.
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