How Digital Native Students Learn?

Abstract

Today it is already common to talk about the so-called 'net generation' , 'digital natives' and ‘Millennial Learners’ – youth born after 1982s and later, spending a large portion of their lifetime online (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001; Tapscott, 1998). Modern web technologies enter daily life, their application goes far beyond the internal domestic environment, and their user gradually becomes a multi-tasker (Talbot, 2007). ‘Digital natives’ are willing to apply modern web technologies in all fields of life and, certainly, in the learning process at school and in the university. Therefore, it is reasonable to monitor their habits, their development and their impact on learning, and, specifically, on e-learning. Based on survey data, About 50% teenagers in the US have their blogs (McLoughlin, Lee, 2008). We can already identify the signs of significant impact of the digital era. According to Palfrey and Gasser (2010), the “digital era has transformed the way how people live their lives and prelate to one another and to the world around them“. Work with students, considered as digital natives, creates new challenges for a university. It is important to take into account such criteria, as time, financial, ICT resources in possession. IT is essential to plan the whole learning process, take into account possible challenges (IT should be noted, that each innovation can provides certain surprises), difficulties for students and ways for overcoming them, intended means of communication and student support measures. Self-organizing environments not necessarily act as effective learning environments. Wisdom of uncontrolled crowd easily can turn into an inordinate, unstructured information flow, barely suitable for learning. However, control applied in this case, should not become a dictate. Therefore, application of Web 2.0 technologies is a challenge for e-learning designers and users (teachers and [...].