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by Don Tapscott
Today's youth are different from any generation before them. They are exposed to digital technology in virtually all facets of their day-to-day existence, and it is not difficult to see that this is having a profound impact on their personalities, including their attitudes and approach to learning. From the educators' perspective, this technology is making today's kids the most demanding and challenging students in history. I believe this is cause for celebration, and that our educational system should eagerly embrace the new opportunities this technology offers.
The 85 million baby-boomer adults in the United States and Canada have now been eclipsed by their 88 million offspring. The youngest of these kids are still in diapers and the eldest are just turning twenty. They are the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital media. Computers can be found in the home, school, factory, and office; and digital technologies, such as cameras, video games, and CD-ROMs are commonplace. Increasingly these new media are connected by the Internet, the expanding web of networks that is attracting a million new users monthly. Today's kids are so bathed in bits that they think it's all part of the natural landscape. To them, the digital technology is no more intimidating than a VCR or toaster. Call them the Net Generation.
A communications revolution is shaping a generation and its world, a phenomenon we've seen before. When the baby-boomers were teenagers, it was television's turn to establish itself as the most powerful information technology in history. TV's impact on society in general and the boomers in particular was profound. We may remember early television only as I Love Lucy or rigged quiz shows, but when the American civil rights movement began to find a voice, it was television that served as the messenger and the mobilizer. When the boomers marched on the streets to protest the Vietnam war, television chronicled and amplified their presence. Just as television redefined the American political process, it has transformed marketing, commerce, education, leisure, and culture.
But to today's media literate kids, television's current methods are old-fashioned and clumsy. It is unidirectional, with the choice of programming and content resting in the hands of few, and its product often dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator. To digital savvy N-Geners, television should be interactive. It should do what the consumer asks. It should enable a dialogue, encouraging citizens to speak with one another.
This shift from broadcast to interactive is the cornerstone of the N-Generation. They want to be users-not just viewers or listeners. The result is that time on the computer and Net is time taken away from television. Today's kids watch less television than five years ago, and much less than their parents did at the same age. The trend will continue as the new media penetrates households, becomes easier to use, and grows in speed, services, and content.
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Projected decline in television viewing.
1995 - 2000
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Two-thirds of kids use a personal computer, usually either at home or school. The vast majority of children use video games. Increasingly, all digital technologies are evolving towards the Net . According to Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), the percentage of teens saying that it is "in" to be online has jumped from 50 percent in 1994 to 74 percent in 1996 to 88 percent in 1997. It's now on par with dating and partying!i The Net is coming into households as fast as television did in the 1950s.
All this is occurring while the Net is in its infancy and, as such, is painfully slow, primitive, limited in capabilities, lacking complete security, reliability, ubiquity, and is subject to both hyperbole and ridicule. Nevertheless, children (and many adults) love it and keep coming back after each frustrating experience. They believe it has great potential.
Today's Web Surfer
The parents of today's youth chose between comic books, baseball cards, bikes, basketballs, and episodes of the TV show Spin and Marty. Children today have the same joys (Spin and Marty has been replaced by The Simpsons), but from their fingertips they can traverse the world. They have new powerful tools for inquiry, analysis, self-expression, influence, and play. They have unprecedented mobility. They are shrinking the planet in ways their parents could never imagine. Unlike television, which was done to them, they are the actors in the digital world.
Those who say that the Net is all about a bigger crop of couch potatoes not only have a cynical view of humanity but also ignore the budding experience with interactive technologies. Unfortunately for these commentators (and fortunately for kids), the similarities between the two technologies end with the screen. In fact, the shift is more like from couch potato to Nintendo jockey.
TV is controlled by adults. Kids are passive observers. In contrast, children control much of their world on the Net. It is something they do themselves. They are not viewers; they are users and they are active. They do not just observe; they participate. They inquire, discuss, argue, play, shop, critique, investigate, ridicule, fantasize, seek, and inform.
This makes the Internet fundamentally different from previous communications innovations, such as the development of the printing press or the introduction of radio and television broadcasting. They are very hierarchical, inflexible, and centralized. Not surprisingly, they reflect the values of their adult owners. By contrast, the new media is interactive, malleable, and distributed in control. As such, it cherishes a much greater neutrality. The new media will do what we command of them. And at this moment, tens of millions of N-Geners around the world are taking over of the steering wheel.
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Projected household online access penetration
in the U.S. 1996 - 2000
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This distinction is at the heart of the new generation. For the first time ever, children are taking control of critical elements of a communications revolution.
On the Net, children must search for, rather than simply look at, information. Yes, this forces them to develop thinking and investigative skills-and much more. They must become critics. Which Web sites are good? How can I tell what is real and what is fictitious-whether a data source or the alleged teenage movie star in a chat session?
Further, children begin to question assumptions previously unchallenged. There is great diversity of opinion on the Net regarding all things and constant opportunities to present your views. This is leading to a generation that increasingly questions the implicit values contained in information. Information becomes knowledge through the application of human judgment. As children interact with each other and the exploding information resources on the Net, they are forced to exercise not only their critical thinking but also their judgment.
Because these kids have the tools to question, challenge, and disagree, they are becoming a generation of critical thinkers. I can think of nothing more singularly important to the future of humanity. They accept little at face value, probably because there is a medium to challenge things. Unlike the TV generation who had no viable means to interact with media content, the N-Generation has the tools to challenge ideas, people, statements-anything. These youth love to argue and debate. They can instantly comment on any information they find with the click of a mouse (blast off a message to the Webmaster on any site). And they are constantly required to make a case for something. They must then rely on their point of view, test it, and alter it if appropriate.
Digital kids are learning precisely the social skills that will be required for effective interaction in the digital economy. They are learning about peer relationships, about teamwork, about being critical, about how to have fun online, about friendships across geographies, about standing up for what they think, and about how to effectively communicate their ideas. For example, researching a project on pollution, the child must take multiple steps; evaluate information along the way; organize findings through cutting from digital documents or creating bookmarks; postpone action in favor of an alternative; coordinate many different activities; segue to a chat line to check on friends and then cycle back to the project; allocate time; remember a previous experience or site-key elements in the development of attention.
From teacher-centred to learner-centred
Historically, the field of education has been oriented to models of learning that focus on instruction-- what we can call "broadcast learning." The term "teacher" has implied approaches to learning where an expert who has information transmits or broadcasts it to students. Those students that are "tuned in" take the information they are "taught"-i.e., information that is transmitted to them-into an active working memory.
The field of educational psychology is rich with research, theories, and lessons regarding what impedes such information from being received and stored for subsequent replay. It has been long thought that through repetition, rehearsal and practice, facts and information can be stored in longer-term memory which can be integrated to form larger knowledge structures. The product of this is certain outcomes and behaviors, which in turn can be measured during testing.
Until now education has tended to focus on the teacher not the student. This is especially true in post secondary education where the specific interests and background of the teacher strongly influences the content. Most of the activity in the classroom involves the teacher speaking and the student listening.
The lecture, textbook, homework assignment, and school are all analogies for the broadcast media -- one-way, centralized, and with an emphasis on pre-defined structure that will work best for the mass audience. Curricula are designed by experts who presumably know the best sequencing of material and how children can best learn math, acquire a new language, or understand Mesopotamia. When you have a class with thirty-eight students and no technological tools for a different approach, broadcast not only makes sense, it is the only option. Programs are not customized to each student but rather designed to meet the needs of a grade -- one size fits all, like a broadcast.
The new media, particularly the Internet, enables centering of the learning experience on the individual rather than on the transmitter. It is important to realize that shifting from teacher-centered to learner-centered education does not suggest the teacher is suddenly playing a less important role. A teacher is equally critical and valued in the learner centered context, and is essential for creating and structuring the learning experience. Much of this depends on the subject; no one would suggest, for example, that the best way to learn the piano is the discovery mode.
Learner-centered education begins with an evaluation of the abilities, learning style, social context and other important factors of the student that affect learning. The digital media enables students to be treated as individuals-to have highly customized learning experiences based on their background, individual talents, age level, cognitive style, interpersonal preferences, and so on. It would extensively use software programs which can structure and tailor the learning experience for the child. It would be more active, with students discussing, debating, researching, and collaborating on projects.
Learning will become a social activity, facilitated by a new generation of educators.
For example, suppose that the topic is salt-water fish. The teacher divides the grade 6 class into teams, asking each to prepare a presentation on a fish of their choice covering the topics of history, breathing, propulsion, reproduction, diet, predators, and "cool facts." The students have access to the Web and are allowed to use any resources they want. Questions should be addressed to others in their team or to others in the class, not the teacher.
Two weeks later, Melissa's group is up first. They have created a shark project home page with hot links for each of the topics. The presentation is projected onto a screen at the front of the class as the girls talk. They have video clips of different types of sharks and also a clip from Jacques Cousteau discussing the shark as an endangered species. Then they go live to Aquarius, an underwater Web site located off the Florida keys. The class can ask questions of the Aquarius staff, but most inquiries are directed at the project team. One of the big discussions is about the dangers posed by sharks versus the dangers to sharks posed by humans.
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| "My friends that aren't connected to the Internet can barely believe that days go by and I never turn on my television set once," says 16-year-old Kim Devereaux. "I suppose it's because the television is static. You can't really do anything with it. On the Internet you're deciding what qualifies as entertainment on your own. The Internet is interactive. The television is not." | |
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The class decides to hold an online forum on this subject and invite kids from their sister classes in other countries to participate. The team invites the classes to browse through their project at any time, from any location, as it will be "up" for the rest of the school year. In fact the team decides that they are going to maintain the site, adding new links and fresh information throughout the year. It becomes a living project. Other learners from other countries find the shark home page helpful in their projects and build links to it. The team has to resource the information, tools and materials they needed.
The teacher acts as a resource and consultant to the teams. The teacher also facilitates the learning process, among other things participating as a technical consultant on the new media. He learns much from Melissa's group, who actually know more about sharks than he does (his background is art and literature, not science.) The teacher doesn't compete with Jacques Cousteau, but rather is supported by him.
This scenario is not science fiction. It is currently occurring in advanced schools in several countries. The teacher is not an instructional transmitter. She is a facilitator to social learning, whereby learners construct their own knowledge. Students will remember what they learned about sharks as the topic now interests them. More important, they have acquired collaborative, research, analytical, presentation, and resourcing skills. With the assistance of a "teacher", they are constructing knowledge and their world.
I should underscore that the digital media is a necessary but insufficient condition for reinvention of education. Computers and the Net are simply preconditions for moving to a new paradigm in learning. However, every project that I have examined where the Net and computer technology have been introduced to students shows that the technology has been a stimulus for more far-reaching change.
Most important, such initiatives provide the children themselves with the tools they need to learn and to catalyze the rethinking of education. Changes to a century-old system will not come about because of some top-down decree from educators. The schools need to become learning organizations themselves. Teachers, administrators, and students need to learn as organizations together. And I have become convinced that the most revolutionary force for change is the students themselves. Give children the tools they need and they will be the single most important source of guidance on how to make the schools relevant and effective.
The new media has helped create a culture for learning, where the learner enjoys enhanced interactivity and connections with others. Rather than some professor regurgitating facts and theories to students, they discuss and learn from each other with the teacher as a participant. They construct narratives that make sense out of their own experiences. Various digital forums enable brainstorming, debate, the influencing of each other - in other words, social learning.
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| "When watching TV you're allowing yourself to become brain dead," says 15-year-old Sarah Vandervoort of North York, Ontario. "Dont' get me wrong. I do watch TV, but I spend more of my free time on the Net. You need to be mentally awake to surf the Net. You can't have conversations with people if you aren't with it. The Net is a communication link between you and the world whereas TV is only a source of communication between you and the media." | |
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In the fall of 1996, thirty-three students in a social studies course at California State University in Northridge were randomly divided into two groups; one taught in a traditional classroom and the other taught virtually on the Web. The teaching model wasn't changed fundamentally -- texts, lectures and exams were standardized across the two groups. Despite this, the Web-based class scored, on average, 20 percent higher. The Web class had more contact with one another and was more interested in the class work. Web class members also felt that they understood the material better and that they had greater flexibility in how they learned.ii
The ultimate interactive learning environment will be the Web and the Net as a whole. It increasingly includes the vast repository of human knowledge, tools to manage this knowledge, access to people, and a growing galaxy of services, ranging from sandbox environments for preschoolers to virtual laboratories for medical students studying neural psychiatry. Today's baby will learn tomorrow about Michaelangelo by walking through the Sistine Chapel, watching him paint, and perhaps stopping for a conversation. Elementary school students will stroll on the moon. Medical students will navigate through your cardiovascular system.
Needless to say, a whole generation of teachers needs to learn new tools, new approaches, and new skills. This will be a challenge-- not just because of resistance to change by some teachers -- but given the current atmosphere of cutbacks, low teacher morale, lack of time due to the pressures of increased workloads, and reduced retraining budgets.
Don Tapscott is Chair of The Alliance for Converging Technologies a think tank conducting a series multi-million dollar investigations into how the Net is transforming business strategy, government and society. He is the author of 7 books, most recently the bestseller Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, McGraw Hill 1998.
iTeenage Research Unlimited Press Release, January, 1996 and Teenage Marketing & Lifestyle Update Spring 1997
iiSchutte, J.G. Virtual Teaching in Higher Education
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