pedagogy 2.0: fulfilling the educational needs of a digital native society
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter 1
1.0 Introduction
1.0.1 Background and context of the problem
Students of 21st century have an aversion towards chalk and board which has existed for more
than a century as effective tools of education. Frand states “most students entering our
colleges and universities today are younger than the microcomputer, are more comfortable
working on a keyboard than writing in a spiral notebook, and are happier reading from a
computer screen than from paper in hand” (Frand, 2000, p. 15). According to Marc Prensky,
this gap is created by the rapid distribution and omnipresence of digital technologies in the
last decades of the 20th century (2001a)
In “Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives,” Prensky (2001a) notes people that are currently in
kindergarten through traditional college have immersed their entire lives using computers,
playing video games, using digital music players, video cameras, cell phones, and the
Internet. Today’s average college graduates have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives
reading, over 10,000 hours playing video games, and an incredible 20,000 hours viewing
television within the first 20 years of their lives (Prensky, 2001a). These readily available
technological advancements from a young age create different experiences, which lead to
different brain structures than previous generations that did not have these technological
advancements (Prensky, 2001a). Due to fundamental differences between generations as
Prensky (2001a, 2001b) states that those who are above 30 years old and not born into
technological diffusion, a different classification for this group is necessary; after all Prensky
mentions that non-digital immigrants do inherently process information differently than their
parents and grandparents. In searching for a proper classification, Prensky notes that some
people refer to this generation as the net-gen or digital generation. Prensky classifies this
generation as Digital Natives.
“Our students are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games, and
the Internet” (Prensky, 2001a, p.1). While Prensky discusses the topic of Digital Immigrants
and Digital Natives as students, for the context of this study the researcher will refer to these
groups as Digital Native students and Digital Immigrant teachers (under 30 and above 30
years of age respectively).
Social Scientist Bernard D’sami calls it a divide between children and teachers wrought out
by the use of digital technology, which enables the students, especially those from the
affluent sections to gather vast information in areas that they are interested in.
Recently, a teacher in Chennai city was taking a science lesson for the 8 th standard students
when one of the students questioned her ability to teach and ridiculed her of using foul
language. Others joined in and the class soon turned unruly. Authorities suspended the
student and referred him to a counselor. “Adolescents openly flout our authority in the class.
It makes it difficult, especially for senior teachers” says the Principal.
All migrants have specific goals when they migrate and become citizens of a given country
(Jupp 1966).Migration into a new environment, the impact of globalization and the
technological explosion in the “Information Age” left many committed and highly
professional teachers in a dilemma of unfamiliarity. They became the ‘displaced persons’
(Panich, 1988) of the Knowledge Economy. They could either accept or reject the influx of
technology into their world, but eventually it became evident that technology was here to
stay. Like all immigrants, these teachers needed to be en-cultured into the cultural practices
of the Information Age to allow multiculturalism (Zubrzycki) and cultural pluralism (Smolicz
as cited in Cope, Castle & Kalantzis, 1991) to flourish for social unity, which could finally
lead to assimilation into the Knowledge Economy. While this would be the ideal state the
reality of migration is often the feeling of being on the fringe and encountering unforeseen
pressures and challenges. The NCPB (Non Computer Practising Background) teachers were
unsure of their skills, lacked confidence and were not fully comfortable with the technology.
These digital immigrants often went through perezhivanie (Vygotsky) as they were uncertain
about their new experience and the process; they went through the deep tensions of
apprehension, fear and all the strong vocabulary connected with living through or living over
a new and unfamiliar experience, (Vygotsky 1934/1978 as cited in Wells and Claxton 2002)
before they migrated and during their migration into the Information Age.
Digital Immigrants learners are people, who access, process and utilize information for a
particular need or a particular end. Experienced teachers as learners for the 21st century have
been displaced from their zone of learning and have gone through a culture shock. They were
forced to migrate into the Information Age. Their first impressions have been apprehensive
and like all immigrants, they go through a number of unique experiences and finally blend
two worlds; the pre-digital and digital. They find that the digital natives, (Prensky 2001a;
2001b) including their own students speak a different language and function in a different
environment. Initially, these experienced teachers as digital immigrants went through
perezhivanie. They were unsure of their skills, lacked confidence and were not fully
comfortable with the technology. Nonetheless, as they acquired the skills, confidence and
became comfortable, they were ready to share their knowledge and skills in order to learn to
cope in their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky 1978).
1.0.2 Definitions of terms
1. Digital Immigrants
According to Marc Prensky (2003) those who are not born into the digital word but some
time later in their lives become fascinated about this and adopted many or most of the aspects
of the technology are known as Digital Immigrants.
“A technology user who is above the age of thirty who was not born into the digital world is
known as Digital Immigrant” Brooks- Young (2005)
2. Digital Natives
“A technology user under the age of 30 who was born into technology world is known as
Digital Natives” Brooks - Young (2005)
“Digital Natives are those people who have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using
computers, video games, cell phones and all the toys and tools of digital age.” Marc Prensky
(2003). Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel
process and multitask. They have an aversion towards text and more inclination towards
graphics.
3. Digital Divide
Digital Divide refers to a significant difference in the access to and equity to technology
experience with regard to the status of income race and location of living. It includes the
imbalance both in physical access to technology and the resources and skills needed to
effectively participate as a digital citizen. The term global digital divide refers to differences
in access between countries in regards to the internet and its means of information flow.
4. Web 2.0
Originally in 2004, Web 2.0 was referred to as this idea of the "Web as a platform". The
earlier concept was such that the web is a repository from where browsers collected relevant
data when actually it was a platform that allowed people to get things done
People say web 2.0 is outcome of some programming tools which were later added in to the
html which included AJAX and SOAP and other XML and JavaScript applications that
allowed the readers to actually interact with the Web pages more like you would with an
application on your desktop.
Now Web 2.0 is really starting to mean a combination of the technology (like AJAX)
allowing the customers to actually interact with the information. Web 2.0 is starting to mean
the situation where amateur writers and developers are able to create applications and Web
sites that get more credibility than traditional news sources and software vendors. This
combination of powerful JavaScript tools like AJAX enabling nearly anyone to contribute to
and interact with the data that we are all working with is web 2.0.
5. Social Software Tools
Among Web 2.0 technologies are the socially-based tools and systems referred to collectively
as social software, a term that has gained increased currency in recent years. The attributes of
these new software tools make possible a new wave of online behavior, distributed
collaboration, and social interaction, and they are already having a transformative effect on
society in general and education in particular, triggering changes in how we communicate
and learn. Researcher/theorist Mejias (2005, p. 1) observed that “social software can
positively impact pedagogy by inculcating a desire to reconnect to the world as whole, not
just the social part that exists online,” referring to the isolating and decontextualized
experience of much text-based traditional education. Social software’s include both Web 1.0
and web 2.0 technologies as they contribute to participation, productivity and personalization.
Social Software Tools
Social Software
Category
Examples Potential Pedagogical
Applications
Multi-player online
gaming environments /
Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs);
Massively-Multiplayer Online
Simulation; role play;
visualization; collaboration
virtual worlds Games (MMOGs – e.g., Second
Life, Active Worlds, World of
Warcraft, Everquest)
Discourse facilitation
systems
Synchronous: Instant messaging
(IM, e.g., Windows Live
Messenger, AOL Instant
Messenger, Yahoo Instant
Messenger, Google Chat, ICQ,
Skype); chat Asynchronous:
Email; bulletin boards; discussion
boards; moderated commenting
systems (e.g., K5, Slashdot, Plastic)
Communication (verbal and
written); engagement with
multiple global communities;
socialization; tracking of
information flow; peer-to-
peer exchange and feedback
Content management
systems
Blogs; wikis; document
management systems (e.g., Plone);
web annotation systems
Creation and dissemination
of ideas; collaborative
writing, publishing, and peer
review
Peer-to-peer file
sharing systems
BitTorrent; Gnutella; Napster;
Limewire; Kazaa; Morpheus;
eMule; iMesh
Sharing, review, and
collaboration
Learning management
systems
Blackboard/WebCT; ANGEL;
Moodle; .LRN; Sakai; ATutor;
Claroline; Dokeos
Communication, groupwork;
distribution and sharing of
resources
Relationship
management systems
MySpace; Friendster; Facebook;
Faceparty; Orkut; eHarmony; Bebo
Establishing and maintaining
social contacts, connectivity;
spaces for communication
and creation of identity
Syndication systems List-servs; RSS aggregators Multi-modal access to
information; maintaining
links with new content;
filtering and customized
display of content
Distributed
classification
systems(folksonomy)
Social bookmarking sites (e.g.,
del.icio.us, Digg, Furl); many
media sharing and social
networking sites also make use of
tag-based folksonomies to organize
and classify content
Tagging/categorizing
resources; maintaining
sharable collections of
resources; reuse of resources;
development and joint
exploration of common
interests
6. Pedagogy 2.0
It is a framework that aims to focus on desired learning outcomes in order to exploit more
fully the affordances and potential for connectivity enabled by Web 2.0 and social software
tools. It is envisioned as an overarching concept for an emerging cluster of practices that
advocates learner choice and self- direction as well as engagement in flexible, relevant
learning tasks and strategies. Though not intended a prescriptive framework, it distills a
number of guidelines characterizing effective learning environments, such as choice of
resources, tasks, learning supports, and communication modalities, as follows:
• Content: Should consist of micro units of content that augment thinking and
cognition. It may include a wide variety of learner- generated resources accrued from
students creating, sharing, and revising of ideas.
• Curriculum: Should not be static but dynamic. It should be open to discussion and
learners input. The modules should be divided into small chunks. It should assimilate
formal and informal learning.
• Communication: Students should have multiple opportunities to interact with their
peer and conduct discussions along with the support of technology enabled learning
which stimulate their visual, auditory and logic skills.
• Learning processes: Learning should happen within the context of real life
experience so that they can relate learning to their lives.
• Resources: Should include multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in
multimedia. The various Web Based Applications and Computer Based Applications
should be utilized in the class to support the learner.
• Scaffolds: The students should be assured with support from the teachers, parents,
community and the peer to do more experiments which can leverage their knowledge
base.
• Learning tasks: Learning process should become personalized, experimental and
learner driven this will enable the creation of innovative contents from the part of the
learner.
7. Social media
It includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive
dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-
based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,
and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Social media is media
for social interaction as a super-set beyond social communication. Enabled by ubiquitously
accessible and scalable communication techniques, social media has substantially changed
the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate.
8. DIY culture(Do it yourself)
It is a broad term that refers to a wide range of elements in non-mainstream society,
such as grassroots political and social activism, independent music, art, and film,
derived from the DIY tradition.
DIY culture says “no” to the idea that there is an established answer. It says “yes” to
empower an individual to develop answers for herself. DIY culture is not new. In fact, it’s
always existed. It’s part of our unique make up as human beings, the thing that separates us
from the rest of the animal world.
We don’t merely exist in the world that is presented to us. We use our environment, we
manipulate tools, and we actively form patterns of thought that help us cope with stress and
anxiety.
9. User-generated content
User Generated Content (UGC) covers a range of contents available through different forms
of media which has come up with the innovations happened in the field of technology. The
term was widely used after the birth of web 2.0 which utilized the user generated content .It
has caused the expansion of media production through new technologies that are free for the
general public to use and at times to make their contributions to the content. Most of the
technologies came up after the web 2.0 which ranges from YouTube, wikis, flicker etc belong
to the larger ambit of user generated content. It also involves the movement of free software’s
and open source software which open the access to the general public who likes to contribute
and build their skills thus breaking the barriers of collaboration.
Productivity
*Learner created content
*Contribution to knowledge
*Creativity and innovation
1.1 Designing of Pedagogy 2.0
Presentation
*Learner Agency
* Learner Choice
*Customization
xh
Participation
*Communication
*Collaboration
*Connectivity
Pedagogy 2.0
Objective of the study
1.2 Objectives of the Study
The study explores the difficulties faced by digital immigrant teachers in coping
with the digital native students and their ways of gathering knowledge.
How social learning tool can enrich teaching learning process
To explore whether Pedagogy 2.0 can take over the traditional pedagogy.
To understand the possiblties of Learner Centric Approach in classroom.
1.3 Assumptions
The students who study in Pondicherry University have problems with their teachers who
stick on to the old successful method of teacher centric pedagogy. They have less attention
span for the classes handled by these teachers. The comments collected are from students
below 23 years age, studying in Pondicherry University with basic orientation to technology.
In the discussion they have included their previous experiences from other institutions where
they have pursued studies.
Chapter 2
2.0 Review of literature
According to Marc Prensky “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no
longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” A really big discontinuity
has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so
fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the
arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.
Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this
new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers,
videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of
the digital age. Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are
integral parts of their lives”.
Digital Immigrants are those who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later
point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new
technology. The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all
immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to
some degree, their old accent that is, their foot in the past.
There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out
your email.
It’s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital
Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are
struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.
But Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the
Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice. These skills
are almost totally foreign to the Immigrants, who themselves learned – and so choose to teach
– slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously.
Digital Immigrants don’t believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or
listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can’t. Of course not – they didn’t practice
this skill constantly for all of their formative years. Digital Immigrants think learning can’t
(or shouldn‟t) be fun. Why should they – they didn‟t spend their formative years learning
with Sesame Street.
Unfortunately for our Digital Immigrant teachers, the people sitting in their classes grew up
on the “twitch speed” of video games and MTV. They are used to the instantaneity of
hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed
messages etc.
Today’s learners are different. “Www.hungry.com” said a kindergarten student recently at
lunchtime. “Every time I go to school I have to power down,” complains a high-school
student. Is it that Digital Natives can’t pay attention, or that they choose not to? Often from
the Natives point of view their Digital Immigrant instructors make their education not worth
paying attention to compared to everything else they experience – and then they blame them
for not paying attention!
It is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be
impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in the face of everything we
know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language
easily, and forcefully resist using the old. Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t
know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate.
Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how
good things were in the “old country.
It seems to me that after the digital “singularity” there are now two kinds of content:
“Legacy” content (to borrow the computer term for old systems) and “Future” content.
As educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content in
the language of the Digital Natives. The first involves a major translation and change of
methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking. It’s not actually
clear to me which is harder – “learning new stuff” or “learning new ways to do old stuff.” I
suspect it’s the latter.
In geography – which is all but ignored these days – there is no reason that a generation that
can memorize over 100 Pokémon characters with all their characteristics, history and
evolution can’t learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 101 nations
in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.
So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students
– they will have to change. It’s high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike
motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run –
and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them.
Social constructivist forms of participation allows comments and annotations by
others, and, furthermore, by contributing to extant communities of interest by sharing
resources. Therefore, not only is this element of Pedagogy 2.0 reflective of the “participation
model of learning” (Sfard, 1998), as opposed to the “acquisition” model, but it also adds a
further dimension to participative learning by increasing the level of socialization and
collaboration with experts, community, and peer groups, and by fostering connections that
are often global in reach. Jenkins (2007, p. 51)
By harnessing digital technologies and social software tools, four key areas pivotal to the
development of personalization through teaching are summarized by Green, Facer, Rudd,
Dillon, and Humphreys (2006). According to these researchers, pedagogy must do the
following:
ensure that learners are capable of making informed educational decisions;
diversify and recognize different forms of skills and knowledge;
create diverse learning environments;
include learner-focused forms of feedback and assessment.
Personal Learning Environments (PLE’s), defined by Siemens (2007a), as “a collection of
tools, brought together under the conceptual notion of openness, interoperability, and learner
control. As such, they are comprised of two elements – the tools and the conceptual notions
that drive how and why we select individual parts” (para. 2). Moving on from LMS’s, the
PLE concept represents the latest step towards an alternative approach to e-learning. Unlike
LMS’s that take a course-centric view of learning, PLE’s are learner-centric. The idea is to
have learners exercise greater control over their learning experience, rather than be
constrained by centralized, instructor- controlled learning.
Many higher education students currently lack the competencies necessary to navigate and
select relevant sources from the overabundance of information available (Windham, 2005). In
the age of personal publishing and user- generated content, essential digital literacy skills are
required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency
(Katz & Macklin, 2007).
Early adopters of digital media opportunities involved the integration of new media modes,
forms, and genres into learning activities. These have included wikis, blogs, video logs, text
messaging, email, hypermedia, and more (Ganley, 2004).
Students need to develop expertise and confidence in finding, evaluating, creating, and
sharing ideas, which often involves complex critical thinking skills (Jenkins, 2007; Lorenzo
& Dziuban, 2006).
They also need to become a global citizen, capable of communicating and working in diverse
contexts. These benefits, however, need to be accompanied by pedagogical interventions that
equip students with the skills needed to operate in a digital culture and that use media to
enrich their learning and develop essential literacy skills, while ensuring that there is a shift in
“the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement” (Jenkins,
2007, p. 4)
Knowledge does not exist in individual minds but is a product of participation in cultural
practices, and learning is embedded in multiple networks of distributed individuals engaging
in a variety of social processes, including dialogue, modeling, and “legitimate peripheral
participation” (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Recent research attests to a growing appreciation of the importance of the learner’s self-
direction and control over the whole learning process (Fazey & Fazey, 2001; Narciss, Proske,
& Koerndle, 2007). Evidence suggests that we can improve learning effectiveness by giving
the learner control over, and responsibility for their own learning (Dron, 2007; Nesbit &
Winne, 2003). This is the foundation for such approaches as problem-based and inquiry-
based learning (Desharnais & Limson, 2007; Edelson, Gordin, & Pea, 1999), and is central to
the grand vision of Pedagogy 2.0, where learners have the freedom to decide how to engage
in personally meaningful learning.
According to Dron (2006), students will fall victims of de-motivation, boredom and desultory
owing to the incorrigible stands adopted by the digital immigrant teachers. Web 2.0 and
social software inculcate learners to make decisions that hit their goals and needs for
connection and social interaction.
T.R.Ramakrishnan and Dr.K.Puttaraju(2010) “In the survey using a schedule from a sample
of 100 students. Using relevant statistical tool, projects that they are very emotionally
attached to the gadget and feel depressed when taken away from them among both genders.
The research conducted was among the bachelors of business management and media
students for the purpose of identifying the student psychosis on using the mobile phones. The
findings state that the students go through a depression which affects their studies, social
connection and result in dislike of the teachers who have captured their mobiles as a
disciplinary measure.”
“Apart from choosing which resources and sites to subscribe and contribute to, which tools to
use, and how and where to use them, we are witnessing a shift in the modalities of expression
that are now available” (Jenkins, 2007).
. By harnessing digital technologies and social software tools, four key areas pivotal to the
development of personalization through teaching are summarized by Green, Facer, Rudd,
Dillon, and Humphreys (2006). According to these researchers, pedagogy must do the
following:
Ensure that learners are capable of making informed educational decisions;
Diversify and recognize different forms of skills and knowledge;
Create diverse learning environments;
Include learner-focused forms of feedback and assessment.
The rise of student-generated content or student performance content (Boettecher, 2006). For
example, in recent years the e-Portfolio (Abrami & Barrett, 2005; Love, McKean, &
Gathercoal, 2002) has emerged as popular strategy for capturing and organizing student-
generated content
Chapter 3
3.0 Methodology
3.0.1 Introduction
The student’s perception about teacher has an influence in his/her interest in the subject and
attention span (Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory). Technology has incurred
information explosion which has facilitated students to choose information from wide range
of sources. In this scenario teachers role as the knowledge repository is being questioned and
the students rely more on online repositories to access knowledge. Therefore, the role of
teachers in educational institutions has to be redefined with special emphasis to their
pedagogy. The study try to understand whether by integrating technology into the teaching
framework the role of teachers as facilitators can be improved.
3.0.2 Context of the study
In an incident, a 12th standard student from Chennai slits the throat of his Hindi teacher for
writing rigorous comments about his studies in the progress card. Teachers form different
quarters of India complain of a sea change in the attitude of students towards closed
classroom. The same phenomenon unfolded in the west during the diffusion of technology in
later 90’s. The study is based on the ideas presented by the educationalists, technologists and
psychologists from the west to tackle the crisis.
The student’s perception about teacher has an influence in his/her interest in the subject and
attention span (Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory). Advancements in technology has
caused information explosion which has enabled students to choose information from
different sources. In this context, the teacher is estranged as a credible source of information
which is taken over by wikis and other sources of information. Therefore, the role of teachers
in educational institutions has to be reinstated provided the teachers revamp their pedagogy
by integrating technology into the framework.
3.0.3 Sample
The digital native students are ones who suffer because of the drawbacks of digital immigrant
teachers in adapting to technology. It is by understanding the problems faced by the native
students that we can formulate right suggestions to the teachers. Thus the study used the
qualitative method of Focus Group discussion as its Research Method. The focus group
discussion was conducted for finding out the problems faced by the digital native students in
the classes handled by their digital immigrant teachers during the course of their study in
Dept. of Mass Communication, Pondicherry University (2010-2012).
The focus group discussion was found the most appropriate method for the research because
the students can share their thoughts on the specific problems the researcher needs to focus.
Before selecting the members for the focus group discussion, a prospective list of students
was prepared. On the basis of this they were met and asked questions to verify that they come
under the title of Digital Natives. From the list of 20 students the focus group was narrowed
downed to a list of seven members. They were given prior notice about the place and time for
the focus group discussion.
The students came from different backgrounds and they got acquainted with technology
during their course of studies. None of them have certified training in using any of the
application software. They learned it through frequent experimentation.
3.0.4 Data Collection
All the seven students selected for the focus group discussion were asked 10 questions. They
all had to respond to all the 10 questions. There was a consensus that there won’t be any
external intervention during the sharing. Each of them was given 10 minutes to respond to the
questions. All the questions were open ended which helped to elicit more information from
the group. The information they provided were mostly from the experience from their studies
in Pondicherry University. They were comfortable to answer the questions as all the members
were from the same Department. The focus group discussion lasted for one hour and fifteen
minutes. All the participants actively joined for the discussion. As there was no interruption
caused either by the group members or by any external factors the discussion went very
smoothly.
3.0.5 Theoretic Perspective
The social learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura has become perhaps the most
influential theory of learning and development. While rooted in many of the basic concepts of
traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for
all types of learning.
His theory added a social element, arguing that people can learn new information and
behaviors by watching other people. Known as observational learning (or modeling), this
type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors.
There are three core concepts at the heart of social learning theory. First is the idea that
people can learn through observation. Next is the idea that internal mental states are an
essential part of this process. Finally, this theory recognizes that just because something has
been learned, it does not mean that it will result in a change in behavior.
3.0.6 The study
This study is about the widening the gap between the students of modern generation and
teachers from the old generation and its effect on the teaching, learning process. The social
learning theory propounded by Albert Bandura says that students’ perception about the
teacher has an effect on the attention span of students. The digital native students have
developed a gap with their old generation teachers. The teachers’ estrangement to technology
has widened the gap further. This study propounds Pedagogy 2.0 which is the assimilation of
Participation, Presentation and Production for bridging this gap.
3.0.7 Content analysis
The researcher chose qualitative content analysis as his methodology do the research.
According to Bernard Bereslon, Content Analysis is a research technique for the objective,
systematic, and quantitative description of noticeable content of communications (Bereslon,
1974). Qualitative content analysis requires the researcher to select the samples prior to the
analysis and also make a coding system to analyse the selected data. Qualitative analysis goes
beyond merely counting words or extracting objective content from texts to examine
meanings, themes and patterns that may be manifest or latent in a particular text. It allows
researchers to understand social reality in a subjective but scientific manner (Zhang and
Wildemuth,).
In this study the researcher analyses the answers that came up during the focus group
discussion conducted among 7 students studying in Pondicherry University, Mass
Commuincation Department.
Chapter 4
4.0 Data Analysis
The findings are based on the focus group discussion instituted in a group of 7 students from
the Dept. of Mass Communication, Pondicherry University. The students are from a Digital
native background. The findings listed below are divided on the basis of specific answers
which came up during the focus group discussion.
“I can find more interesting lectures if I go online. Those lectures give us more
options to connect with our day-to-day life and they have competition from the
rival websites which forces them to update their database in regular intervals. But
in the case of our teachers they have no competition so they provide us with old
stuff they studied. For me institution is only a platform, I frequently visit websites
to gather information rather than accepting what my teacher says in the class.”
How can teachers prepare their students for long-term future—as well as for tomorrow
without sabotaging the legacies of the past. This is not easy but the consensus among experts
is clear. The way for us to move ahead under such circumstances is not to focus only on the
changing technology, but rather redesign learning, with adults and young people taking up
different roles from the past and on the other hand young people (students) need to focus on
using new tools, finding information, making meaning, and creating. Adults (teachers) must
focus on questioning, coaching and guiding, providing context, ensuring rigor and meaning,
and ensuring quality results. The system of teacher lecturing and giving his labor on students
to make them understand a particular topic is often known as direct instruction.
Unfortunately, direct instruction is becoming increasingly ineffective many today‘s students‘
number one complaint of their teachers is they just talk and talk and talk. And unfortunately
the students’ impression about his teacher is like listening to a static radio. The era of
lecturing, talking and teaching has become archaic. The teachers tool of telling has become
out dated. Yet most teachers were trained to tell. Many of them like explaining and think they
are good at it. Even though they are good the students take their lecturing as Greek and Latin.
Thus teachers tend to use this old proverb quite frequently in their class “I am casting pearls
in front of swine’s”
“Yes, in fact the tech savvy teachers are more interested in what we want; they
have always an open mind to accept our thoughts. They are also using the same
kind of technology that we are using and when we see this we find we are moving
in the same wavelength.”
Today‘s students are not there to receive, they are often in the electronic world of 21st
century. Most students recognize and applaud their creative, energetic teachers—especially
the ones who respect them and care about their opinions. What they like is to connect with
other students of their age in other places electronically‖ (e.g., through a secure e-mail service
such as ePals). Inside their classrooms, what students say they find most engaging is group
work, discussions, sharing their own ideas, and hearing the ideas of their classmates. Students
like using technology, the most important thing for them is to be respected as individuals by
their teachers inside their class and not like ignorant. “We‘re not stupids is a universal
lament”.
“They feel that technology has made us lazy. This is because we now a day’s
seldom goes to the library because we have a lot of information stored on the net
and this is an era when all the libraries are opening their digital repositories. So
the students are used to reading books online. This at times is not acceptable for
many digital immigrant teachers. The fact is, we are not lazy but we are accessing
information much faster than what they used to do during their formative years.”
Some teachers compare native students‘ capabilities, to that of students of the past. But there
are alternative ways to see our students which is more evident in the 21 st century. Today’s
students are rockets, their teachers tend to treat them as of early 19’s but in reality they are
supersonic 21th century self guided missiles (metaphorically). This makes today’s teachers
rocket scientists. Why should we think of today‘s kids as rockets? The first reason is their
speed; they operate swifter than any of their previous generations. Although little has
changed in the emotional growth of students, there has been an enormous change in the
accumulation of knowledge, and thus their intellectual growth is twice that of their previous
generation.
The most interesting fact is that now a day’s kids teach their parents how to use their
mobile applications and how to create their “Facebook” accounts. The problem lies in the
fuel we use to ignite the rocket. Parents and teachers are still using petrol instead of rocket
fuel to ignite them. While some want kids to slow down and ―just be kids, they are asking to
roll back their very nature. Increased speed is not the only character that influences the
digital natives. The 21st century upbringing which includes the 5000 minutes video game they
played, the number of online friends they established. Like rockets, they often cannot be
controlled at every moment, so the primary target should be set with precision. And because
rockets are difficult to repair in flight, they must be made as self-sufficient as possible. As
with all rockets, kids fuel mix is arbitrary. Some are super fast some take time to gear up and
some may even miss the target. Some even blow up. As the manufacturing keep up with the
pace the quality of the rockets will also improve. Perhaps the most important thing is today’s
rockets can reach targets far of reach with better precision guided by technology. So is the
Digital Native student. With the arrival of digital technologies many fantasies in the James
Bond movies started becoming materialized which is still an awe-inspiring thing for the
digital immigrants. Digital Natives communicate to larger public within a fraction of split
seconds. They generate contents online of various genres ranging from text, pictures and
videos. They organize themselves socially and politically across the planet. Educators in this
modern era deals with a group of specially engineered students who shouldn’t be filled with
the educational fuel of the past, because that fuel just doesn‘t make today‘s kids go. We have
to design new fuel and booster. Its impossible to throw away the legacies of the past but
unless we start preparing our students to fly higher in a much improved speed, educators role
in shaping them up have less scope.
For some teachers Wikipedia and Britanica are like taboo words. If they find this
in any of the courtesy list they tend to get annoyed and at times reducing the
scores. But when the new generation teachers come in this position they are very
keen in understanding how we are using this and not why. In one incident one of
my classmates plagiarized an assignment from the internet. My teacher who was
tech savvy went into the net and typed the first two sentences in the Google and
found that it was a counterfeit of a well written article. I don’t know what that
student felt at that particular point but for me this teacher became a yardstick of
analyzing all other teachers.
Partnering is just opposite of teaching by lecturing. In Pedagogy 2.0 the teacher’s role
changes into a facilitator. Rather than lecturing teacher’s role should be to provide
students with interesting thoughts and guide them in choosing best available resources
from a junk of information uploaded in the internet. In partnering the responsibility is
completely on the student to search, make suggestion, find answers, and create
multimedia presentation, which are then scrutinized by the facilitator and the class and
evaluated for its correctness, context, and quality. Thus the curriculum gets covered much
faster with much interest as students themselves gather knowledge with their experiences
in the real life.
There exist levels of partnering to fit different types of students, different as they come
from different situations and background
How can a teacher come out of the regular direct teaching to the new Pedagogy?
By asking the class if they think she/he is talking too much, or more than what
they need.
Asking them for suggestions on how reduce the amount of time telling.
Partnering means, letting students to focus on the parts of the learning that they have a
genuine forte, and letting teachers focus on the part of the learning process that they can do
best. Giving students agency to focus area of their interest means letting them do the
following:
Finding and following their inner passion.
Using whatever technology they are comfortable.
Researching and finding information.
Sharing their opinions and views through medium of their choice.
Practicing with the help of games both Web Based Applications and Computer
Based Applications
Creating presentations in text and multimedia.
Letting teachers do what they can do best means giving teachers primary responsibility for
the following:
Asking the right questions
Guiding the students
Linking the topics to particular contexts
Ensuring quality
A major shift in pedagogy—from telling to partnering—is not something that can be
achieved with in an overnight. The transformation will take much longer time which can
be years or month but the tipping point will be much faster if thousands of teachers will
attest in the dissemination of Pedagogy 2.0. It is the call of the day because the 21 st
century students need such a change to cope with the changing horizons of learning. The
positive signal is that many digital immigrant teachers now collaborate with their digital
native student to bring in such a change in their classrooms. This has made those teachers
more close to their student’s heart.
“Classes should be two way interactive. PPTs if they are not more than text it is
no worthier than a stale class. It will be as if PPTs taking the role of the lecturer.
But if the teacher puts in his effort and brings a particular situation or context
which I can relate with the subject then the class will become two way
interactive.”
The digital native students have an aversion to text and they have more affinity towards
graphics and pictures. This might be the outcome of the exposure they had to the various
digital media including Video games. They don’t want their teachers to repeat that they
already know. They are looking for new information. The digital immigrant teachers are
trying to bring interactivity to the classroom by preparing PPT presentations thus saying
that they have adapted to the technology. But I reality, they are using more text than
pictures in the PPTs which the students find is staler than a boring lecture. What the
Digital Native student wants is to integrate the teachers experience into his teaching. They
are also keen to give their point of view on a particular subject. If the teacher is able to
teach in a way that the student can relate the teaching to a particular context or a situation
in his real life his interest in the subject will be elevated.
Teachers must keep in mind to insert more graphic in their PPTs rather than more text. It
has been proven that graphics and multimedia based learning will have more attention
span than the text based teaching among the learners.
“I have observed for myself, when we were in the nursery the teachers were fairly
experienced because they knew what I wanted exactly as a kid. But if you ask me
about a teacher who is above the age of 30, in the current circumstances my
answer will be no. They really don’t know what the students really want and they
find hard to adapt to technology. They continue following the very old style of
lecturing and they want us to take in whatever old stuff they present us. In fact
what affects more is not their age but their inexperience in using technology. I am
comfortable with a teacher who is sixty plus with a good understanding about
technology and its positive use as a tool to enrich ones knowledge.”
Digital Immigrant teachers don’t know how to teach effectively using technology. They are
following the old method of talking and writing when the world has moved forward. They are
not able to adapt to the new ways of teaching that involves partnering with the students. The
sources of information and the credibility of it should be reviewed rather than the technology
used to gather it. Adopting a social model of teaching and learning rather than closed
classroom model, which place emphasis on the institution and instructor is the pioneering
step towards achieving Pedagogy 2.0. A in vogue feature of Pedagogy 2.0 is the increased
socialization of learning and teaching, greater emphasis is on teacher-student partnership in
learning, with teachers as co-learners and co-creators.
4.0.1 Achieving Pedagogy 2.0
Participation
Virtual classrooms which have dwindled the confines of a physical classroom is no exception
for a imprisonment of students as it is an instructor centered learning set up. To further ahead,
we will need to demolish these virtual walls so as to create social learning spaces, in which
learners and … [teachers] … become associates in a community of practice, participating in
networks of interaction that transcend the old-fashioned constructs of institutions and
organisations.
The social software tools make it easy for learners to engage productive discourse among
peers, instructors, other subject-matter experts, and the community at large. These tools opens
up new possibilities of maintaining own collection of ideas, photos, and bookmarks online. .
These creations facilitates personal expression and publication which in turn adds to the
social constructivist form of participation allowing expert reviews and comments thus
contributing to the knowledge economy, but it also adds a further dimension to participative
learning by increasing the level of socialization and collaboration with experts, community,
and peer groups, and by fostering connections that are often global in reach.
Personalization
The term personalization is not Greek term for the educators as it has been in and out of their
framework for past few years as there has been an exorbitant lament for “student centric
learning” for past many years. Personalization nurtures the student’s potential of decision
making. However, despite the efforts of many constructivist teachers, some are still
recalcitrant in the prevailing and pre-packaged content and pre-designed syllabus, denying
student’s autonomy in shaping their own learning trajectories.
Text cannot perfect communication, as web-based multimedia production and distribution
tools incorporating rich audio (podcasting, Skype), photo (Flickr) and video (vodcasting,
YouTube, Stickam) capabilities are growing.
According to researchers, pedagogy must do the following:
Ensure that learners are capable of making informed educational decisions;
Diversify and recognize different forms of skills and knowledge;
Create diverse learning environments;
Include learner-focused forms of feedback and assessment.
The challenge for educators is to enable personalization by, knowledge building, and
providing learner options and choice along with supplying the necessary structure and
scaffolding.
Moving on from LMS’s, the PLE concept is an alternate method of e-learning. Unlike LMS’s
that take a course-centric view of learning, PLE’s are learner-centric. The idea is to have
learners exercise greater control over their learning experience, rather than be constrained by
centralized, instructor- controlled learning.
Productivity
Students are ingenious in creating and generating ideas, concepts, and knowledge, inarguably
the crux of the “new wave” in education is to equip learners as producers and not mere
consumers of knowledge. The value of textbooks are questioned for their ineptness to update
in frequent pace, thus increasing the reliance on up-to-date social learning tools by the
learners.
Today’s learners have distaste towards factual information as they prefer search engines and
knowledge repositories like Wikipedia and Google to go beyond the periphery of a subject. A
disillusionment slowly sweeps across the teacher community that instructor supplied
knowledge has limitations and if it per-empts learners from discovery and research which
will affect the knowledge creation process. There is an interest amongst some of them on how
the social software tools make the creation and sharing of knowledge possible with the
learner in the driving seat.
Student-generated content may also include synchronous and asynchronous computer-
mediated communication (CMC) discourse such as chat logs and discussion board postings,
reflective writing in the form of blog-based diaries, summaries, and reviews, created by
students working individually or in teams. Last, but not least, it may also include “came
across” content, including the results of students’ own wide reading, gathered from websites,
journals, magazines, and news articles that are brought to, and shared with others in, the
learning environment.
4.0.2 Findings
Teachers of digital immigrant class tend to imposture as tech savvy which affects
their reputation among students.
Digital immigrant teachers tend to question the authenticity of the information
retrieved from digital repositories like the Wikipedia.
The digital native students’ attention span in the classes of digital native teachers
who uses Pedagogy 2.0 is more when compared to that of digital immigrant
teachers who follow the course-centric approach.
Digital native students can multitask, they can learn with the help of games, for
them graphics and interactivity accounts more than words.
It is impossible to rusticate technology from the life of digital natives’ lives as it has evolved
into an inevitable component of their day-to-day life.
Chapter 5
5.0 Conclusion
The era of chalk and board has ended long back but teachers who adopt the new method of
pedagogy are very few. Students in our colleges and universities today carry tablets and
laptops instead of the old college notes. Reading, looking at screens with instant access to
internet has become common among student fraternity. The dissemination of technology in
rapid scale among people has contributed to this radical change.
Today’s students from the kindergarten to college have already adapted to the technology era
by using ipods, laptops and mobile phones. They have a greater understanding of technology
gained through experimentation. But a greater section of today’s teachers are from the
previous generation. They find hard to cope with technology. This in turn affects the
technology enabled teaching which new generation students clamor for. This forces to draw a
line between the new generation teachers and the new generation students. As per definitions
by European technologist the people who were born before 1960s comes under the digital
immigrant background where as people who are born after 1960s are digital native. But when
we come to the Indian version of the same concept, the diffusion rate of the technology
should be taken into account. The digital divide between the west and our country is such
wide that only people who were born afer 1980’s come under the bracket of digital natives.
Thus the majority of teachers in our educational system are from digital immigrant
background or those who were born before 1980’s. The digital natives students gather and
process information in a much different way when compared to their parents and
grandparents. This has caused concern in people from both the generations.
One way or the other today’s students are all native speakers of technology; they are
comfortable with using mobile phones and computers. Their use of technology is beyond the
periphery. But the digital immigrants are satisfied with the peripheral use of technology. The
best example is their use of Mobile phones. The digital natives use mobile phones not only
for making call but for wide range of other purposes including surfing internet but the digital
immigrants are not interested in exploring the other possibilities of technology other than
their basic use.
The digital immigrant teachers tend to imposture as digital natives. To achieve this they use
text based PPTs and contents copied from web sites. The students perception about the
teacher is affected by this as some teachers even forget to remove the hyperlinks from the
ppt.
Students from the digital native background uses internet and technology enabled platforms
for gathering vast information. They make use of online games and other CBA to enrich
study.The digital immigrant teachers are incapable of accessing these information because of
their inability to understand the possibilities of available technology. This has caused the
students to look down upon their teachers. Their credibility as authentic source of information
is being questioned by the students. The roles of teachers are taken over by the social learning
tools like the wiki and facebook. Students want their teachers to participate in the process of
learning not as a giver but as a co-learner and co-creator. They want to interact in the class
and share their ideas with their friends through group discussions and other means. But the
digital immigrant teachers are not open for such a change in the system. Students are more
attached with the teachers from a digital native background; they are more tech savvy nad
understand the new language of participation, presentation and productivity which form the
basic elements for Pedagogy 2.0.
The digital immigrant teachers will face more problems with their students if they follow the
old norms of teaching. The way to move ahead is to embrace the new pedagogy 2.0.
Pedagogy 2.0 is not a new platform altogether but it is the integration of participation,
presentation and productivity into the old pedagogy. The teachers who find trouble in using
technology should understand the possibilities of it and alter their thoughts rather than
propagating false information that it is not authentic. They could either accept or reject the
influx of technology into their world, but eventually it is evident that technology will stay.
Like all immigrants, these teachers needed to be en-cultured into the cultural practices of the
Information Age to allow multiculturalism and cultural pluralism for the flourishing of social
unity, which could finally lead to assimilation into the Knowledge Economy.
The age of virtual classroom has also come to an end. Virtual Classrooms are considered as
no substitute for a participatory classroom where teachers interact with the student by giving
the agency to the student to come up with interesting ideas. The new age students prefer
social learning spaces rather than virtual walls.
Teachers must encourage students to use the social learning tools for interacting with peers
and experts from different areas because these tools enable the students to share their ideas to
more number of people thus building the scope for improvement The sharing of ideas through
social software tools will merge them to the social constructivist world thus becoming key
component of the knowledge economy.
This kind of interaction will also give them global exposure as their works are reviewed by
people from around the world who are experts in the subject. The teachers should accept the
fact that students will search for more than what they are teaching. The role of the teachers is
to suggest and correct the students when they start derailing form the track.
The student centric approach of teaching helps students to nurture their forte in decision
making. Some teachers still believe in pre-packaged content and pre-designed syllabus,
denying student’s the agency to choose their own learning methods.
In the technologically advanced era text alone cannot perfect communication; students make
use of audio video and images to gather information. The pedagogy should ensure learners
are capable of making informed educational decisions; diversify and recognize different
forms of skills and knowledge; Create diverse learning environments; Include learner-focused
forms of feedback and assessment.
Educators should enable personalization by building knowledge and providing learner
options and choice along with supplying the necessary structure and scaffolding. Learning
Management System should be revamped so as to give the learner the focus rather than
teacher. Learning management systems are totally teacher centric and the rules are set by him
but this should be replaced by PLS where students gets upper hand.
Students should be viewed as producers of knowledge; the role of the teacher is to equip them
as producers of knowledge rather than consumers. Students believe that the Digital immigrant
instructor supplied knowledge has limitations and that it per-empts them from discovering
and researching which will add to the knowledge creation process. The social learning tools
help the learners in the process of becoming the knowledge producers, this includes the blogs
they maintain, and the computer mediated communication such as virtual discussion rooms
and chat logs. The vast reading of the student through internet will also add to his or her
knowledge production.
Web 2.0 and social software tools make possible user-controlled, peer-to-peer knowledge
creation, and network-based enquiry. The integration of technology for the creation of
knowledge and networking will open a new path in the teaching learning practice.
Nevertheless, technology alone should not be considered as the sole driver of change in
pedagogy. Though technology makes possible interaction and peer to peer discussions
possible, learning process cannot be totally based on this. Pedagogical frameworks, informed
by learner-centered principles, and sensitive to the learning context, need to be considered.
Furthermore, Web 2.0 is part of a group of societal factors that include changing student
expectations and demographics, lifelong learning, and institutional pressures for improved,
innovative, and cost-efficient modes of teaching. This implies that we must be alert to a range
of factors that impact on pedagogical choice. There are already signs of optimism that
existing Pedagogy 2.0 practices, by capitalizing on the three P’s of personalization,
participation, and productivity, will result in a learning landscape and a diverse range of
educational experiences that are socially contextualized, engaging, and generative.
Can teachers, whose traditional frame of reference is formality, understand how informal
learning can take place through social networking and beyond the formal spaces of
classrooms, libraries, and laboratories? Can we extend our classrooms to link with open
communities that are sharing, revising, and creating new ideas? Can academia, with their
established legacy of transmissive pedagogy, rise to the challenge and affect the kind of
teaching revolution and changes that are both necessary and inevitable in the new age? The
challenge is to facilitate learning, be less prescriptive, and be open to new media, tools, and
strategies, while nurturing the skills of information evaluation as well as the blending,
remixing, and recombination of ideas to reach creative solutions. This can be achieved by
employing the social software tools, resources, and opportunities that can leverage what our
students do naturally – socialize, network, and collaboration.
5.0.1 Recommendations
The era of chalk and board has ended long back so the teachers should understand
the possibilities of adopting Pedagogy 2.0 in classrooms.
Teachers should understand the possibilities of Social Learning tool and adopt this
technique to enhance teaching.
Students should be considered as not mere consumers of knowledge but producers
of it thus encouraging the knowledge economy.
The digital natives like to present their thoughts in the classroom.
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