Knowledge building in 21st century

Learners, learning and educational practice

Abstract

The integration of the Internet and mobile learning devices in blended and face-to-face (f2f) teaching and learning is not a 21^st century invention. For many decades teachers and instructors have sought the best technologies for their students in order to offer enriched learning pedagogies with the most recent forms of technology. Recent literature on the so- called millenials purports that Generation Y prefers mobile learning and VLE to f2f learning and teaching methods because they have grown up learning and living with them (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Howe & Strauss 2003; Lancaster & Stillman 2002). It has also been noted in the research about the 'new' higher education student that they seek to learn anywhere, any time to fit learning into their schedules (McLoughlin & Lee, 2009). This led to discourse into the digital divide and Prensky's (2001) reference to the 'digital native'.

This current generation of undergraduates in the western capitalist world has grown up with the Internet, digital technologies and second and third generation mobile phones. Many have however, only been introduced to this technology as a learning device when they entered university, only in the last few years have they experienced Learning Management Systems (LMS) in schools. This paper will argue however that despite the increase of technology into the daily lives of Generation Y, many students in higher education may not be as widely supportive of the idea of integrating this technology including their social networking systems into the f2f classroom as has been recently presumed.