Rapetti edmedia2010 july2010

A research project in Ticino (Switzerland)

Emanuele Rapetti Samanta Ciannamea Dr. Stefano Tardini Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni

Agenda INTRO“The only thing

that does not change

is that at any and every time it appears

that there have been

‘great changes’. ”M. Proust

Quotated by Bennett-Maton-Kervin in their

“Digital Natives. A critical review on the evidence”

1. Intro

2. Addressing the topic

1. Key-labels

2. Critical voices

3. LEARNERS’ VOICES

1. Aims

2. Methodology

3. Results

4. Conclusions

02/07/2010 14.39.37 Emanuele Rapetti – NewMinELab – USI Lugano (CH) @ ED-MEDIA2010 2

1. Addressing the topicKey-labels

One dominant perspective:

DIGITALIZED

GENERATION

OF LEARNERS

Three key-labels:

a. DIGITAL NATIVES

(Prensky, 2001)

b. GENERATION Y

(Howe & Strauss, 1991)

c. NET GENERATION

(Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005)

02/07/2010 14.40.06 3Emanuele Rapetti – NewMinELab – USI Lugano (CH) @ ED-MEDIA2010

www.francisanderson.wordpress.com

The adoption of this modelin instructional design

02/07/2010 14.40.13 Emanuele Rapetti – NewMinELab – USI Lugano (CH) @ ED-MEDIA2010

Key-points:-Teachers have to stay up-to-date with technologies development-Students need learning experiences that fit with their cognitive style

-Task-oriented-Multitasking-Collaborative-Fast-Focused-Sharing-based

4

2. Addressing the topicCritical voices - Ethnocentrism (USA)

- Unbalancing ICTs-people

- Learning processes simplification and generational stereotypes

- A-critical acceptance of digital divides

- Determinism in Education

- Undemonstrated “media skills”

- …

a. Schulmeister

(2008)

b. Bennett, Maton & Kervin

(2008)

c. Bullen

www.netgenskeptic.com

(2008-present)


…what do they think about?

…how do they manage their media diet?

…how do they self-perceive their digital learnings?


3. LEARNERS’ VOICESAims To understand and observe in

higher education context:

- Real ICTs usages in learning experiences

- Nowadays learners’ themselves perceptions

- If age can be considered the independent variable to define a tech-savvy and tech-oriented group of students

Within a broader research approach about ICTs, eLearning and learning:

eEthnography

In contact with similar researches in UK, Italy, and at the OECD


3. LEARNERS’ VOICES @USI-SUPSIMethodology

Online questionnaire

Step1: descriptive stats about learners’ (self)perceptions, behaviors, and preferences

Step2: crosstabs and cluster analysis questioning age factor

Sample:

562 university students of the italian speaking part of Switzerland (Ticino)

Age:

Min 17; Max 75; Mean 24,5

Context:

USI – Università della Svizzeraitaliana

SUPSI – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

9 different faculties


• Personal data (age, gender, course, etc).

• Owned digital technologies.

• Access to the internet.

• Online activities and frequency of usage.

• Most used applications.

• The role of ICTs in everyday life.

• Learning preferences (in general and concerning ICTs).

• The role of ICTs in studies/learning experiences.

• eLearning perception.

• Rationales in using ICTs for learning.

Questions sections:


3. LEARNERS’ VOICES @USI-SUPSIResults


The 5 activities that students pursue daily:

•Use a search engine (79.3%)

•Read / write e-mail (78.1%)

•Watch a film / play audio files (38.5%)

•Read newsletters or alerts (36.6%)

•Read newspapers (34.8%)

The daily media diet



The role of ICTs



When you learn, you prefer:

A lot

in%

Fairly

in%

A little

in%

Not at all

in%

Lectures in classroom 52.3 41.8 5.1 .8

Search engines 57.2 32.2 9.0 1.6

Individual study (using books, notes, folders etc.) 50.8 38.7 9.4 1.2

Wikipedia 35.4 43.2 16.8 4.7

Online platforms (eLearning) 35.0 37.1 22.3 5.7

Websites/specialized blogs 33.2 34.6 23.4 8.8

Individual lessons 30.7 35.0 27.0 7.4

Printed dictionary/enciclopedia 16.8 38.1 35.2 10.0

Multimedial supports 13.9 27.7 38.1 20.3

Social networking sites 8.6 11.7 31.6 48.0

The preferred strategies to learn

The preferred way to learn

[Sample: 562. This question, missing: 50;

total 512 (100%). Multiple choice]

Summing up results about age

Does AGE influence nowdays learners…

1. Concerning the ICTs they use the most?

2. About their eLearning perception?

3. In the way they set their media diet?

4. Concerning the learning tools they prefer?

5. If observing the time they spend online to learn?

1. No

2. No

3. Yes

4. Yes

5. No


Crosstabs says:

Conclusions• Average,

– AGE can not be considered the independent variable to identify tech-oriented learners

• Rather

– It is part of a corpus of explaining factors, inter-related but never directly correlated

• Such

– economical condition(e.g.: palms adults)

– Discipline choice (e.g.: web 2.0 tools engineers and computer scientists)

– eLearning familiarity (e.s.: Moodle university platform Communication and Economy students)


Key-references• Bennet, S., Maton, K., Kervin, L. (2008), “The ‘digital natives’ debate: a

critical review of the evidence” in British Journal of Educational Technology, volume 39, issue 5, pp. 775-786

• Pedrò, F. (2006), The New Millennium Learners. Challenging our views on ICT and learning, OECD-CERI background paper

• Schulmeister R. (2008b), “Is There a Net Gener in the House? Dispelling a Mystification”, in Eleed (E-learning and Education Online Journal), n. 5. In internet: http://eleed.campussource.de/archive/5/1587 .

• Bullen M. (2008-2010) The NetGen Skeptics blog http://www.netgenskeptic.com

• Cantoni, L., Rapetti, E. & Tardini, S. (2010), “Generation Y between myth and reality” in (ed.) Salvetti, F., Glocal Working, FrancoAngeli, Milano (forthcoming).


http://eleed.campussource.de/archive/5/1587

http://www.netgenskeptic.com/

Questions?? ?


[email protected] | www.newmine.org

Historico-socio-cultural

(by Howe & Strauss)

Educative-cognitive

(by Junco & Mastrodicasa)

1. Special

(they feel this way because of the big economic and educative

attention their parents devoted to them)

1. driven to success (goal-oriented, they want high-rates and prefer to get the best

mark instead of criticizing a teacher)

2. sheltered (never before children received so much protection, in medicine,

as well as in social experiences)

2. social (they love to interact in learning: fewer lectures and more

discussions)

3. confident (they trust in authority because parents and educators gave them

a lot)

3. experiential learners(learning with PCs, they developed the trial-and-error way to

think, they dislike instructional manuals and like to gather information

surfing freely on Internet)

4. conventional (in opposition with genX, they prefer to respect rules of conduct,

proper dress and social authority and not to take risks)

4. multitasking (because of the “development of their learning processes using

such technologies, they developed cognitive processing styles that can

be described as ‘hypertext’ in nature”)

5. team-oriented(because of the experience in school and the opportunities given

by the Web 2.0)

6. Achieving(in average, they score much better than even before)

7. Pressured(they have been spoiled and cuddled to reach the top, now they

feel it’s time to give in back something)


Enlarging or changing the paradigm?


Rapetti edmedia2010 july2010

Education

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