Learning Strategies for the Media Generation Coping with Homo Zappiens

1. Learning Strategies for the Media Generation Coping with Homo Zappiens Wim Veen Centre for Education & Technology

2. Who is Homo Zappiens The generation using three tiny devices from early childhood on …

3. Who is Homo Zappiens The generation for which learning is playing and having fun • It is the generation playing games • Riven, Atlantis, Planetarion, Unreal Tournament, B&W, PlayStations I and II • Communicating with SMS, MSN, chatrooms • The generation that mixes f2f and virtual friends

4. Playing games in worldwide teams

5. Chatting in three rooms at a time with different electronic personalities

6. Sending e-cards including text, music, voice, and images

7. Finding out about the latest earthquakes

8. Who is Homo Zappiens • The generation that invents games • Without winners or losers, without a clear start or end, and creating their own rules and changing them whenever they like

9. Who is Homo Zappiens • The generation that is skeelering up the stairs, instead of down the stairs • The generation that is surfing the waves of the sea, and snowboarding in stead of skiing. The generation considering school as a meeting place rather than a learning place

10. Schools Complaining Homo Zappiens • Short attention spans • They cannot even listen for more than 5 minutes! • Hyper active behavior • They cannot concentrate on one task at a time! • No discipline • Crushing their calculators, forgetting their textbooks, not passing on letters from school to their parents! • No respect • They consider teachers as their equals!

11. In stead of looking at children from a point of view what they should do according to their parents and teachers, why not looking at them from the point of view what they actually do?

12. Homo Zappiens at Work Multi-tasking Integrated scanning skills Processing discontinued information Non-linear approaches

13. Homo Zappiens at Work Multi-tasking Integrated scanning skills Processing discontinued information Non-linear approaches

14. Scanning texts, sounds, movement, colours, and images

15. Integrated scanning skills

16. Homo Zappiens at Work Multi-tasking Integrated scanning skills Processing discontinued information Non-linear approaches

18. Homo Zappiens at Work Phoning to his friend Listening his favorite music Doing his home-work Surfing the Net

19. Homo Zappiens at Work Multi-tasking Integrated scanning skills Processing discontinued information Non-linear approaches

20. Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3 Processing discontinued information Zapping TV channels is constructing interrupted visual, audio and textual information chunks into meaningful knowledge

21. Homo Zappiens at Work Multi-tasking Integrated scanning skills Processing discontinued information Non-linear approaches

22. Linear Non-linear A B C D E F B D C A F E Non-linear approaches Non linear approaches require a redesign of content according to new insights of learning and using multimedia technologies

23. Do the Homo Zappiens skills relate to learning?

24. About Learning • We learn by reflecting on our experiences creating ‘mental maps and models’ • Learning is the process of adapting our mental models by including new experiences.

25. Basics of Constructivism • Learning is searching for meaning • Constructing meaningful knowledge demands understanding of the whole and its constituant parts • The aim of learning is constructing your own meaningful knowledge

26. Brain based Learning • Human brains are neural networks acting as complex systems (adaptive, non-linear, and self-organizing) • Learning is a non linear process of adaptivity of the system using associative and creative thinking

27. Brain based Learning • Learning is enhanced by • confronting learners with complex, interactive experiences, high level content within an authentic context, and fitting the learner’s interests or needs • a challenging content and learning activities • Activating learning methods foster internalization of information

28. Summarizing……... • Learning is an active mental process of the learner • reflection with the ‘inner self’, and through communication with others • transforming information into meaningful knowledge • Teaching is enabling students to be active, communicating, thus constructing knowledge

29. First Conclusion • Homo Zappiens prepares for future • Education is underestimating the Homo Zappiens • Education does not recognise the screenagers’ learning skills • Education will have to adopt entirely new learning approaches

30. Second Conclusion • ….The skills that screenagers develop while scanning computer screens, zapping the TV channels, multitasking, ‘cross reading’ texts, and thus rapidly processing huge amounts of information, will guarantee the survival of our civilization in the 21st century.

31. New Approaches for Teaching • Flexibility of content • Flexibility of learning models • Flexibility in time/scheduling • Flexibility of goals and assessment • Flexibility of the learning community Preparing for a creative society instead of an industrial society

32. Flexible Content • Defining new ‘core’ content • OECD’s study on what pupils should know for future • Using any resources available from everywhere • Good bye to the linear traditional textbooks • Using the communication facilities for asking, finding out and discuss • Hello mobile devices for new learning services Ministries to provide guidelines in stead of detailed curricula

33. Flexibility of Learning Models Teacher led Community led Learner led Teachers to become ‘side-by-side’ learners, facilitators, and the ‘guide on the side’

34. 7 lessons a day each lesson is 50 minutes each week is the same 40 weeks a year Less whole classroom teaching Subject oriented timeslots Varying periods for individual and group working Flexibility in Time/Scheduling Schools to become autonomous institutions

35. Flexibility of Assessment • Students own their learning process • Schools may define competencies • Students can take responsibility • formulating and checking their own learning goals • Students can prove their competencies • by submitting (multi media) materials showing their competencies e.g. in electronic portfolios Secondary students to learn and work from 16+

36. Flexibility of Learning Communities • Opening up schools • e.g. Tesco’s 2000 Network Learning Communities: learning with parents, external experts, governmental authorities: the extended learning community • Schools will loose their primacy of educational services Schools, multimedia companies, TV broadcasters, and other private companies to establish ‘Public Private Partnerships for Learning’

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