The common assumption is that these students, sometimes dubbed “digital natives” because they’ve spent their entire lives with the Internet and digital technology, are comfortable with and clamour for e-learning technologies. But, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Far from preferring to be immersed in a digital world of self-directed learning, students seem to still have an enormous desire for class-based lectures, the report’s authors claim.
I have a problem with both the term digital native and how it has been manufactured into one of society’s greatest myths. I also believe there is an improved way in which we should be articulating the use of technology in the learning continuum.