Lee Crockett: Understanding The Digital Generation (raw notes from Typepad)

Notes for Lee Crockett  (from Canada) Keynote 1

Understanding "The Digital generation"

http://fluency21.com lee@fluency21.com

Introduction

Some places can be called "terminally rural"

No hobbits to be seen in NZ :)

The accent is definitely hooking me in ... Jokes are great!

Praised CORE said Ulearn best organised and friendliest conference - yay for CORE

Don't let assumptions get in the way

Knowledge = knowing a tomato is a fruit

Wisdom = knowing not to use it in a fruit salad

Challenge

Step back and get a kick in  the assumptions stop looking from the inside

Spent our entire lives in education (not all of us tho!)

What paradigms are we naturally unaware of

Putting your hands together a differnet way (Feels yucky!)

We face a world on the move. Present disappears into the past. In 2003 - Total globe's production - estimate 5 exobytes of data - 37 000 x books of biggest library in world. In 5 years grown 10 000% - 500 exobytes (sp?). 

How big is that?

13 stacks of books all the way to Pluto - deforest planet 12x - in one day!. Every year 120 years out of date on youtube.

Great infographic on content generation and size of cloud storage here:

http://wikibon.org/blog/cloud-storage/

Google book search - financing digitisation of books from lots of libraries. 60 million books on google book search.

Is that not the next stage fro our libraries? Libraries also concerned with how this will work - affordable up-to-date ethical use of/access to content with equity of access still big issues to be worked out.

Books will beome obsolete (will tho though?!)  image of hand coming out of computer to grab all the books.

Keyboard and mouse will become obsolete.

Amazon's kindle can store a libray worth of books. Digital books outselling paper books. 

Entire works of humankind will be accessed wirelessly anywhere, anytime. Begs the questions - what implications will this have on the skills and knowledge people will need?

How will they determine authenticity and bias? Critical literacy skills so important.

Are schools preparing students for this world? Unlike us - this generation grew up with a mouse in their hands. They also have the belief that the stuff on the screen is not PASSIVE. 

Books and research is telling us that digital bombardment - digi generation are quickly adapting - they have develeoped a cultural brain. Brain changing physically and chemically. Our kids are neurologically wired differently to us - hyperlinked minds. They process info in a parallel manner - not sequentially. Brains are malleable and plastic. Previously thought that the brain stopped developing at age 3. We now understand measureable intelligence rises and falls depending on stimulation. 

Eyes process content of photos 60 000x faster than text. 

Track differently. New research Kent State Uni - their Digital generations eyes first scan bottom then sides then read in an F pattern - different to 'our' generation.  Consiously avoid bottom right of screen (is this where the ads are?!). Specific colours of text appeal to digi gen. Red/Pink then Green then Orange with Black then blue background. Will ignore black text unless highy engaged to read it (think I will be changing the colours on my IWB!).

Digi learners prefer to learn info from multiple sources. Implications - many teachers do not process this way. Digi learners process info very quickly. To really connect with digi learners - need to... If we ban digi devices we are blowing it. Missing a huge opp to connect with our digi learners.  Digi learners prefer multi tasking and parallel processing of info. Continuous partial attention - multi tasking. Happens faster in our digi kids. 

Old school study environment very different to children of today - mess with music etc - and they are still bored! Music helps them to concentrate - contrary to what they think - they are not as effective if they are multi tasking than if they focus on a singular task. They need to appreciate both sets of skills. 

Digi learners prefer to process photos, videos and sound to text. Role of text is to provide clarity to image - not the other way round (as it was). Participants could recall 25 000 pictures 90% accuracy 72 hours later even if only viewed for 10 seconds each. Recall rates a year later still hover around 60%. Presented orally or text only - 72 hours later 10% of content. Need to create 'presentations' based on images not text. 

Multi-sensory - gaming. Words complement images - sharpened their visual literacy. Highly developed visual spatial skills. Moving towards right brained society. Colour sound and graphics mixed in interesting ways.

Random access preferred to hyperlinked multimedia access. Educstors prefer linear, logical, sequential access. Hyperlinked minds - move from info at the speed of thought. Books are an antiquated interface.

It is not us or them - wrong or right - but equally essential. Digi learners prefer to network with multiple.... Hundreds of ways to communicate. 

We can become dependent on this media. Digi learners have internalised it. Kids interact socially different. We do not need to teach technology anymore - they know it - they have internalised.

Need to teach communication skills, problem solving skills, creativitiy, design skills to harness this. 

Digi Learners - just in time. Traditional educators - just in case. Estimate of number of jobs in a lifetime - 10-17 careers by 35. Jobs that dont technically exist yet. Totally different skill set. Such a focus on standardised testing - just in case model of teaching. Digi learners revolve around just in time. 4 year degrees replaced with 40 years of doing and undoing.

Which world are we preparing them for? 

Instant gratification vs deferred gratification and delayed rewards (e.g. if you do well in school = good job). What they do determines what they get. Immediate feedback from new technologies - video games. Design games to ask the gamer to make a critical decision every .5 second. Rewarded every 7 seconds. Instant feedback and/or reward. 

Ave students get positively reinforced, positive feedback once every 25 minutes (?). Graduations on 2nd Life.

Relevant, active and instantly useful vs. teaching memorisation of material in the curriculum guide. 

"What gets measured gets done.... What doesnt get measured doesnt get done" Tom Peters.

Why memorise capitals? Google on phone. World on the move - students will need a completely dfferent set of skills. Fundamentally different kind of studen

Fluencies for Digital Citizen

Infomartion

Media

Collaboration

Creativity

Solution

Leadership, ethics, accountablitiy

Need to be more important than everything else At every age level. 21st Century Fluency Project. Significant gender difference in remembering detail - NOT!!!! It was a trick. 

Oh my goodness - didnt see the gorilla!!! oh dear. Did see the black shirt leave tho! - Dan Simons research "The Invisble Gorilla" - Perceptual blindness. If we do not have a specific frame of reference then our brains refuse to see it. 

Eyes of digital G process photos 60,000 times faster than text. They scan the bottom of the page first, not left to right. Red for boys, pink for girls, not black on white.

Maybe that's why it's so hard for many teachers - it doesn't feel right to do something differently to what they're used to.

You only see the present as it is becoming the past. 10,000% increase in information in 6 years - Knowledge changes and facts becomes obsolete. We will soon have the same access to books as what pods and pads have given us to music. We are at a new paradigm in computer - devices will be voice and touch - keyboard and mouse will be obsolete. Digital data at our finger tips - brings up need for critical literacy and digital literacy. Digital generation's brains are changing physically and chemically. Neuro-logically different to us. 

Educators must acknowledge the centrality of digital connections for our children. :) The digital generation can multi task faster. Brain Rules - multi tasking digital students need to develop essential skills in focussing on a single task. Coming to school is like hitting a wall for digital learners. This teacher needs to develop visual literacy in the classroom... We are moving towards a right brain visual society.  Hyper linked minds - digital generation looks to books as antiquated. "Why can't I follow my own links and develop my own logic?" "Just in Time" vs "Just in Case" learning. Our children need skills to acquire as they are needed - 40 years of constant learning, unlearning and relearning. They need skills, habits of mind and attributes to develop them for their future world. This world is on the move and we are facing a fundamentally different student.  Dan Symon - "The Invisible Gorilla"  - http://fluency21.com/

More information has been sent that we are able to store

Screens are not for passive consumption, but for active particiaption.

Digital Learners prefere multi-tasking. <=> most educators

Digital multi-tasking is here to stay, but students need to learn to appreciate the pros form both ways of learning. 

Role of the text is to clarify the images.

90% recall rate 72 hours after viewing 2500 images for 10 seconds - 10% of oral / text only

This generation creating a right-brained, visual society.

Digital learners 'learn' in a zigzag pattern - traditional learners in logival, linear pattern. Means they are making own meaning, prioritising what is impt and discarding rest.

Again, need to appreciate values from both methods.

Methods of communication grown exponentially since 10 years ago.

Not about hard ware anymore - now about 'Headware"

This world not geared towards just-in-case learning - just-in-time impt in today's society

DLs understand instant gratification - kids getting bored at school because not getting the instant grat. 

"What gets measured, gets done" Tom Peters

Because world is changing so much, so quickly, we need to rethink how we are teaching our kids, and the world that they need to be prepared for.

"21st century fluencies" need to considered, worked on, improved on forever.

Perceptual blindness - once primed to notice something, can not see other things. No right way, but different. Understanding how our kids learn is impt, not to "fix" them.

What is going on in your life, kids' lives, other areas that you are missing, because you are 'primed' to notice certain things - urgency.

Invisible gorilla.

http://www.fluency21.com/

lee@fluency21.com

3 things that you didn't know before, 2 things that you will tell people, 1 thing that you will commit to to do differently.

Books are an antiquated interface

Ipad new paradigm in computing.

This generation grew up with a mouse in their hand.Image  of foetus with iphone A little spooky.

Reading list

• A Whole new mind Dan pink

• Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learnby Larry D. Rosen

• iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind [Hardcover]Gary Small 

• Grown up digital Don Tapscott

• Understanding the Digital Generation (21st Century Fluency Series)by Ian Jukes, Ted McCain,  and Lee Crockett

• Dan Symon - "The Invisible Gorilla"

• Fluency21.com - commit to be a sardine

By ignoring tech devices, we are blowing it, missing the opportunities to engage with digital G.

DG Prefer multitasking.  engaging with sound, video and images first

90% recall of 2500 images after seeing them for 1 seconds.  Hyperlinked info.

Educators prefer linear tasking. engaging with static image and text.

DGs are visually literate.  The words are there to compliment the pictures.

NATIONAL STANDARDS!!!!!! 

Just in time I don't think so . What doesn't get measured doesn't get done

"What gets measured gets done.... What doesnt get measured doesnt get done" Tom Peters