Lesson 3

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY LEARNERS

Today’s learners appear smarter, yet they don’t read ass their parents do and they are addicted to the internet. Even in the classes their concentration is questionable as they are uneasy to simply sit and listen. They become alive again through video presentations, group activities and computer classes.

            The concern for new learners is valid. On the other hand, it is to be admitted that our teachers today generally use the traditional education program applicable to learners of the past, acquainted with linear, textual, and sequential learning. They fail to realize that the new generation of the 21stmillennium is not the kind of learner that they were, but are information technology or digital learners.

            It is observe that the new learners spend much time talking with friends on their cellphones, spending text messages, interacting trough social Internet media like Facebook, playing video games and surfing the World Wide Web.

Last the concerns for new learners is not well understood, it serves to know what scientist say as follows:

• There are positive benefits derived from the use of information technology or digital resources and these counterbalance possible negative effects of technology on children.

• Daily exposure to high technology-personal computers, video game gadgets, cellphones, and Internet and search sites-stimulates the brain by strengthening and creating neural circuits.

• A current technological revolution is creating an intellectual revolution, faster and better than ever before.

            Truly there are valid concerns which must be met, and among these is the feared under development of new learners along social face-to-face interaction skills. On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of the young generation taking on multi-tasking as they perform task simultaneously: watching video, chatting online, downloading pictures and music, surfing the Web, etc. True to say, research shows that multitasking can be detrimental since this prevents concentration and the completion of specific tasks. However, multitasking characterizes professional works in the new world of information technology. There is the need therefore to balance the good and possibly detrimental changes observed among new learners of this information technology age.

           

The 19th century psychologist Jean Piaget presented a chart from childhood to adulthood with the first two years of susceptible minds, six years of acquiring communication skills, teenage years of transition concrete thinking and adult years of abstract thinking and reasoning. Digital technology resources, such as IPod music devices, video games, mobile phones, and the Internet contribute to their digital acculturation.