LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age

When people think about education and learning, they often think about information. It’s not surprising that people see a natural connection between computers and education. Computers enable people to transmit, access, represent, and manipulate information in many new ways. Because education is associated with information and computers are associated with information, the two seem to make a perfect marriage.

This focus on information, however, is limiting and distorting, both for the field of education and for computers. If we want to take full advantage of new computational technologies, and if we want to help people become better thinkers and learners, we need to move beyond these information-centric views of computing and learning.

Unfortunately, most people don’t use computers that way today. When people are introduced to computers today, they are typically taught how to look up information on the Web, how to use a word processor, how to send e-mail. But they don’t become fluent with the technology.

What does it mean to be digitally fluent? Consider the analogy with learning a foreign language. If someone learned a few phrases so that they could read menus in restaurants and ask for directions on the street, would you consider them fluent in the language? Certainly not. That type of phrase-book knowledge is equivalent to the way most people use computers today. Is such knowledge useful? Yes. But it is not fluency.

To be truly fluent in a foreign language, you must be able to articulate a complex idea or tell an engaging story; in other words, you must be able to “make things” with language. Analogously, being digitally fluent involves not only knowing how to use technological tools, but also knowing how to construct things of significance with those tools (Papert and Resnick 1995).

Fluency with language not only has great utilitarian value in everyday life but also has a catalytic effect on learning. When you learn to read and write, you are in a better position to learn many other things. So, too, with digital fluency. In the years ahead, digital fluency will become a prerequisite for obtaining jobs, participating meaningfully in society, and learning throughout a lifetime.

Today, discussions about the “digital divide” typically focus on differences in access to computers. That will change. As the costs of computing decline, people everywhere will gain better access to digital technologies. But there is a real risk that only a small handful will be able to use the technologies fluently. In short, the “access gap” will shrink, but a serious “fluency gap” could remain.

Conclusively; To provide more young people with the opportunity to become digitally fluent, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and the Boston Museum of Science have established a network of learning centers in economically disadvantaged communities. At these centers, called Computer Clubhouses, young people become designers and creators with new digital technologies. Clubhouse members use leading-edge software to create their own artwork, animations, simulations, multimedia presentations, musical compositions, websites, and robotic constructions (Resnick et al. 1998).

By:  ULAYA SIJALI A. (BAPRM 42681)