The Impact of Digital Literacy in Education (Part 1)

With an understanding of who the Millennials are and the characteristics that differentiate them from previous generations of learners, it is important to also consider how these difference will impact education and the way teaching and learning is conducted.  Millennials are entering an educational environment that is not prepared for the way they learn and the way they communicate.  This places heavy demands on educators as they are in a constant struggle to combine the content of the old curriculum in a way that the Millennial learners can relate to and learn from (Prensky, 2001).  This is one of the main issues as the Millennial generation does not respond well to the traditional teaching methods, such as the lecture, that is so prevalent in today’s classroom (Pratt & Pratt, 2009).  According to Price (2010), most Millennials prefer to learn from a variety of teaching methods including multimedia tools such as podcasting, videos, and other online tools.  Price (2010) also noted that one of her learners even successfully navigated the first three weeks of her course and passed the first exam without even purchasing the required text. This demonstrates that faculty must seek other means to communicate lessons to the Millennials rather than relying heavily on texts, as they have done in the past.  Faculty can use activities such as wikis, blogs, games, and social networking tools as optional means to disseminate the lessons to these learners.

And I Did Not Even Know that "Gamify" was a Word

As the saying goes, "It's not the change that bothers us; it is the rate of the change." As technologies develop exponentially, many of us often feel overwhelmed and unable to keep apace with all of the expectations that evolving capabilities place in front of us.

I felt this way as I read a recent article, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, about integrating "gaming" into the online classroom.  And yet, as I read, I also thought of the series of articles that CJ Bracken has been writing about the Millennial generation and their expectations of heightened and more interactive relationships within their online classes.

I am curious:  are any instructors at JSRCC using gaming technologies or gaming psychologies in classes? If you are, why not share your expertise and knowledge at one of our Spring Synergy events.

--Ghazala Hashmi

QEP Coordinator

The Six Levels of Change: Why the Distinctions Are Important

Last week's article, "Cyberized Education," described six levels of change where the cyberization of education is happening.  What is the basis for these distinctions, and why are they important?

Life resource vs. learning resource - The main distinction between these two is one of intent. We are learning creatures; we learn through communicating, socializing, entertainining and being entertained, informing and being informed.  We learn many things informally without thinking much about it, or at times without even meaning to.   But sometimes we learn with more intent in mind.    We use learning resources intentionally; we learn from life resources incidentally.

Learning resource vs. education resource - Although learning and education are sometimes equated, the distinction between the two is important.  Education is society’s means of transmitting, preserving, and renewing its core knowledge to its members. There is an individual dimension, but society created education to benefit the greater social good as well as its individual members.  Learning is the means by which an individual makes sense of one’s life, experience, society, and the universe. The individual dimension is more prominent, although all learning has a social dimension since we are also social creatures.  In practice, the distinction between these two is quite clear in most cases.

Engaging and Retaining Online Learners

I was struck this week by Ghazala’s February 8 post about the importance of communication between faculty and students. She goes on to state that “student engagement is a reciprocal product of faculty engagement.” As so many of us know whether through research or by observation, students who are more engaged (more involved academically or socially) are more likely to be retained or to persist. Thus, successful students are engaged students.

I keep coming back to this question about engaging students outside of the formal learning environment of a classroom. On a physical campus students engage with one another in the classroom but also outside of the classroom. They may hang out intentionally (or unintentionally) in a commons are or the library; they may enroll in multiple classes with the same students creating informal learning communities; they may chat in the parking lot. All of those experiences create community. So, how do we create community in the world of online learning? In my current Distance Learning class, I am excited to see the connections my students are making with one another. They are finding common ground in academic interests, career goals, as parents (a new mom is being cheered on by the more-experienced moms), and as workers. But, when a student ends a Blackboard class, that gathering “space” is eventually removed. Where do students hang out and connect informally, as they might on campus, in our online learning environment? How can we develop opportunities for student engagement that are not confined by bricks and mortar?

I for one am ready to learn more about how I can best engage our online learners. I hope you’ll join me on February 23 and 25 from 1:00-2:30 for a two-part webinar on Engaging and Retaining Online Students. The program is facilitated by Karen Betts, a nationally recognized expert on online student learning and engagement, who is an administrator and faculty member at Drexel. We’ll meet in the LTC Auditorium. I hope we’ll learn and discuss together and begin to shape additional opportunities for our students to become engaged learners. You can register to attend the webinar in the Knowledge Center. The title of the session is JSRCC, Engaging and Retaining Online Students-Part 1 and Part 2. Check out the webinar’s website to learn more about the specific topics covered. If these dates do not work for you, the college has purchased the DVDs of the webinar and will re-broadcast at a later date this semester.

-- Meg Buchanan Foster

QEP Assistant Coordinator