FROM DIGITAL NATIVES TO DIGITAL WISDOM

As 21st century is the era of technology, education has become different from the past. The world we live in changes rapidly and just as today's world is very different from the past, there is no doubt that the future will be very different from today's world. As technology has become an indispensable part of every field of our life, it has an important place in education as well

 And it will be much more crucial in the future in order to meet needs and face challenges of the rapidly-developing world. However, technology should not rule over the education, instead is should support the education. So, because of the changes in the context of our education, there is a need to develop a view of education in which students think more and parrot less, ask more questions, think critically and integrate technology such as creating blogs, websites, videos, programming into their education with the guide of teachers instead of their domination as opposed to past traditions.

Marc Prensky suggests that technology only helps when it supports a pedagogy of “Partnering”. (“The Role of Technology in Teaching and the Classroom”). Before using technology teachers should evaluate the needs of their students' technology-enhanced minds and know pedagogically how to integrate educational technology into their teaching and what to do with it by listening to students and taking their answers into account. According to Prensky, digital natives are those who were born after the adaption of digital technology and also have grown up using the Internet, computers and mobile devices.

As for the digital wisdom, he defines wisdom as the ability to find practical, creative, contextually appropriate, and emotionally satisfying solutions to complicated human problems. It emerges from the additional knowledge we gain from the appropriate use of technologies that enhance our capabilities. So he suggests in that essay that "The question we should ponder for that future is no longer whether to use the technologies of our time but rather how to use them to become better, wiser people."

SOCIAL LEARNING

Social media has drastically changed and enlarged the way we learn, we get news and information recently. But social learning is not brand-new and does not necessarily require social Media. It is a long-term learning way since ancient times. Social learning is learning from other people by interacting and communicating with them. Those people can be peers, elders, family and friends.

Social learning requires an effective design. The designer should decide where and when to use social learning, define the target learners, clarify objectives and what forms of social instruction best teach. Social learning has some goals in order to fill the gaps and strengthen the weak parts of learning. First, learning must be reliable and enjoyable because social learning is a work of interactions with other people. It is ideal to teach social skills like conversation, interview, negotiation.

In order to engage in social learning, learners need to have some certain abilities. They must be able to speak and listen effectively, comprehend what they read , ask and answer questions, and think critically. They also need to use common social media tools to have a communication with others. Social learning is based on collaborative skills not competitive ones. That's why, learners should work cooperatively and transfer their knowledge, sources, experiences to one another.

Social learning must take place in an environment that the organization shares a common culture and has the will to help each other. That way, it makes people gain organizational self-confidence. Because there is no classification, social statue or rank differences in social learning. For social learning, learners must have access to experts when needed in order to succeed. Legal security and information security is what organizations should take care of because social learning can pose some serious risks such as off-hand comments, unwelcomed advertisements and spams.

As for patterns of interaction that occur in social learning, they can create rich social learning activities. These patterns are tutoring interaction, presentation pattern, question-answer, post-comment pattern, collaborative-document pattern, group-discussion, panel-discussion, small group pattern, symposium pattern, ask-expert-community and ask-peers pattern. In the tutoring pattern of interaction , the expert and learner interact one-on-one. In the presentation pattern, one person direct information to others. In the question-answer pattern learners ask question of an expert.

In the post-and-comment pattern, an expert, teacher or discussion leader posts a massage and learners comment on it. In the collaborative-document pattern, learners work together to create and refine a document or other piece of work. In the group-discussion, pattern learners interact one another. In the small-group pattern, the teacher assigns discussion topics or team tasks to small groups and then, they work together. In the panel discussion pattern, experts discuss a topic as learners watch and listen to them. In symposium pattern, a group of experts discuss a subject with learners. In the pattern of asking a community of experts, the learner consults a community of experts which learner is not a member. Lastly, in the ask-peers pattern, the learner consults a group of which the learner is also a member.

There are some capabilities to implement the patterns of interaction and to adapt activities to social learning. For example, one of the basic actions in social learning is sending targeted messages to individuals or groups. E-mail and texting are used for sending messages. Learners can meet and carry on conversations without being in the same location in social learning thanks to chatting, audio-conferencing and video-conferencing. Discussion forums are another collaborative tools that have taken place in social learning.

Broadcast sporadic messages are announcements that occur using a micro-blogging capability. They can be used for deliberate or spontaneous communications and for sharing important information. In social learning, participants may need to post messages for others to read and comment on. So, blogs, audio and video podcast can be used for this aim. Social learning also invites learners to create and share learning materials such as photographs, video clips and writings. File and media sharing, social bookmarking and mashups are useful for sharing information.

GAMES AND SIMULATIONS

Games and simulations allow learners to practice tasks, apply knowledge and infer principles as well as having fun. They can be individual Do activities. Even though they are generally thought as just for fun, they are always purposeful. They teach first and entertain second. A game can be thought of as a simulation that involves a personally challenging task. Games and simulations enable types of learning which are not practical in classrooms.

Games provide specific educational advantages over the other forms of learning. For example, they show consequences not normally visible, let learners make mistakes without suffering permanent consequences, encourage learners to pause, reflect and revise. They also simplify complex situations, give opportunities for abundant practice and feedback and reawaken learning by play. Types of learning games are:

Quiz-show games are good for testing factual knowledge. Such games serve as a test and they are efficient.
Word games, such as crossword puzzles, make learning terminology fun. Most are just fill-in-the-blanks tests dressed up as a game.
Jigsaw puzzles and scrambled-tiles games offer a way to let learners discover whole-to-parts relationships and to test them on those relationships.
Branching scenarios let learners proceed toward a goal by making decisions that help or hinder their progress.
Task simulations require learners to accomplish a realistic bit of work. One type of task simulations is software simulations which are becoming a standard way to learn to operate computer software. Device simulations teach how to operate a piece of equipment.
Personal-response simulations pose a series of complex decisions for learners to make. Learners immediately see the results of the decision.
Environmental simulations let learners experiment with natural environment. This game let learners discover both ecological and economic principles and learn to apply them in the simulated environment.
Immersive role-playing games embed learners in a pretend world complete with complex goals, tools, unpredictable events.

CONNECT-TYPE ACTIVITIES

Connect activities help learners to close the gap between learning and the rest of their lives. They prepare learners to apply learning in situations in real world. If Absorb activities are the nouns and Do activities are the verbs, then Connect activities are the conjunctions of learning. They do not so much add new knowledge but they tie previous skills and knowledge together. When application is crucial, not adequate or while teaching a general subject and learners doubt applicability of material or cannot make connections by themselves, Connect activities can solve these problems. Common types of connect activities are ponder activities, questioning activities, stories by learners, job aids, research activities and original work.

Ponder activities are simple learning experiences that prompt the learner to examine ideas from a new perspective. They are used to make learners aware of how ideas and values apply in their lives and encourage a broader and deeper view about a subject. Ponder activities come in several flavors. Rhetorical questions require learners to think deeply in order to answer the questions for themselves. Meditation activities involve more than cognitive aspects of a subject. Cite-example activities connect the concept with things the learner is already familiar with. Evaluation activities require learners to rate the importance of items of learning. Summary activities ask learners to recap what they have learned.

Questioning activities present learners the chance to answer questions, thus exercising their ability to integrate and apply learning. Such activities are included when learners need to fill in gaps, connect learning to a personal situation and verify truth. Questioning activities deal primarily with knowledge. Such activities are therefore a core part of know and believe objectives and a secondary part of others. It is important that questions in questioning activities should naturally go to those who can best answer them. A good question must be original, simply-structured, sincere, clearly-expressed and open-ended.

Stories by learners are the mirror image of listening to the stories. The difference is the storyteller. In this activity, learners tell stories relevant to the subject they are studying. It enables students to share their own stories that connect the subject that they are learning with their own experiences. In order to be sure that the storytelling activity contributes to learning, story must be relevant to the topic and be complete. Stories have a simple structure including setting, characters, conflict, resolution and moral. Giving learners time to think of a story and announcing them well in advance make learners fell comfortable and self-confident.

DO-TYPE ACTIVITIES

 

 

 

If Absorb activities are the nouns then, Do activities are the verbs of learning. While Absorb activities provide information Do activities transform this information into knowledge and skills. They put people in action. They transform learning from passive reading and watching to active seeking and creating knowledge. Common types of Do activities are practice activities, discovery activities, and games and simulations.

Practice activities help learners strengthen and refine skills, knowledge and attitudes by applying them and receiving feedback. They give learners an opportunity to exercise newly acquired abilities. Practice activities are divided into three: Drill-and-practice activities, hands-on activities and guided-analysis activities. A drill-and-practice activity starts with an introduction that welcomes learners and explains how the activity works. Hands-on learning activities give learners a small piece of real work to perform. Guided-analysis activities step learners through the process of analyzing a complex situation.

Discovery activities don't present ideas but lead learners to discover ideas on their own. They transform trial-and-error into trail-and-aha learning. Discovery learning is an alternative to presentation-based teaching. Discovery activities guide learners in conducting experiments and analyzing situations so that learners can observe and record their finding. Types of discovery activities are virtual laboratories and case studies. A virtual laboratory provides an on-screen simulator or calculator that learners can use to test ideas or observe results. Case studies teach abstract, general principles from specific, concrete particulars. They are good for teaching complex knowledge that can't be reduced to a simple formula.

Games and simulations turn learning into meaningful, productive play. Games serve two purposes: to provide practice of a skill or to provoke discovery of knowledge. To learn from the game, learners must first learn to play the game and in order to minimize the time wasted in learning to play the game, the game must be based on a few simple rules, a familiar model should be used and the same type game should be used through the game.

ABSORB-TYPE ACTIVITIES

Absorb activities enable learners to obtain crucial, up-to-date information they need to do their jobs or further. Even though learners may seem physically passive, they are actually mentally active in Absorb activities. They read, listen, watch, perceive, consider and judge the information. In Absorb activities, content is in control and they are good partners to other kinds of activities in terms of preparing learners Do and Connect activities.

Common type of Absorb activities are Presentations, Readings, Stories by a teacher and Field trips. Presentations supply needed information in a clear, well-organized, logical sequence. They allow the designer to control the sequence of learning experiences. The types of presentations can be classified as slide shows, physical demonstrations, software demonstrations, informational films, dramas and discussions.

Slide shows are alike classroom slide shows and primarily rely on text and graphics to convey the information. In a physical demonstration, learners see a person performing a procedure. A software demonstration let learners watch a clear sequence of actions explained by a commentary. However a software demonstration is not a software simulation. In demonstrations, learners watch and listen as someone else operates the software. In simulations, learners perform the operations. Informational films are used to present a logical narrative for which the order of images and experiences is important, for example to convey cause and effect relationships or to follow a chronological sequence. A drama is a fictional counterpart of informational films; learners watch a fictional scene among people. Discussions are events wherein people interact and we learn from what they say and do.

Reading activities are an important part of a new definition of learning. Instead of teaching people to memorize and recall the information, today we should teach them how to find, read and understand the information when they need it. Reading activities for e-learning typically provide access to reading in three ways: Individual documents, libraries of documents and predefined searches to find Internet sources. Creating an online library by integrating libraries into e-learning courses has advantages for e-learning designers. Thanks to online libraries, reading activity does not fail if a single source of information removes from the Web or an individual server goes down, research and reading activities can be combined easily as well.

Stories by a teacher activities relate individual human experiences , they make information real and personal. Even though stories are often what learners remember best, designers leave out them when converting classroom courses into e-learning. Stories are useful to demonstrate the applicability or importance of what is being taught, give concrete instances of the subject matter and humanize a subject by showing its effects on people. Hero, love, disaster and discovery stories and tragedies are some of story types. Stories must be short and focused, credible, dramatic, up to the point and clear.

At last, online Field trips take learners on educational excursions to places where they can observe concrete examples of what they are learning. The essential aspect of the field trips is not walking from example to example, but examining the examples and seeing relationships among them. They let learners experience a variety of real-world examples the way they might on a physical field trip or visit a well-stocked museum. Types of fields trips are guided tours and museums. The guided tour orients the learner in a virtual or real environment. There are variations of guided tours such as personal travel diaries, Web tours in an online meeting and tours of imaginary worlds such as a human body, an atom or a cave. Virtual museums let learners create their own tours and displays. In order to integrate museums into e-learning, designers should create a learner’s tour of the museum, create research activities or combine a museum with a presentation or reading.

DESIGNING E-LEARNING

E-learning is the use of electronic technologies to create learning experiences. It comes in many forms such as standalone courses, learning games and simulations, mobile learning, social learning and virtual classroom courses.

Effective e-learning requires both design and development. They are not the same thing. Design is decision- governs what we do; development is construction – governs how we do. Starting with good instructional design is crucial for achieving the goals. So, unless we do not get the instructional design right, technology can only decrease the speed and certainty of failure.

Identifying an underlying goal is the starting point of a design, but doing this requires research and considering wide range of goals. The more you link learning objectives to organizational goals, the more valuable your e-learning will be. Good learning objectives should be clear, precise and worthy. Analyzing the learners’ needs and abilities plays a major role in e-learning as well. Abilities and attitudes matter more than just age, gender, nationality and so on. Learners are individuals and no two are the same. So, finding a common way about what learners must learn and how they best learn is quietly prudent.

E-learning projects have less possibility of failures thanks to clear objectives. Everything stems from objectives. From the objectives, we identify prerequisites, select learning activities and design tests. Three of six objectives – create, decide, do - state your goals and; three secondary ones – know, believe, feel – help accomplish goals. In order to determine whether learners have met the objectives, we need to add criteria to flesh out our objectives.

Prerequisites are the requirements for learning to take place. So, for listing prerequisites quickly and systematically, careful analysis of objectives will help. By teaching essential objectives, identifying high-value objectives, eliminating unnecessary ones and considering designed curricula, identifying proceed can easily get out of hand.

After identifying objectives, the next step is to decide the order in which learners will accomplish these objectives: Bottom-up, top-down, sideways. These three strategies have their own uses for a certain kind of group, subjects and objectives.
When it comes to creating objects to accomplish objectives, each objectives lead us to create a learning object. A learning object requires both learning activities and tests. Creating the tests as soon as you have defined the learning objectives saves time and money.

We have three type of activities which are absorbing the knowledge, learning what to do with the knowledge and connecting it to work and life. At the very last step, controlling what has been done and redesigning the incomplete parts and mistakes in a cycle of analyze, design, build and evaluate are the design process proceeds.