Educational Implications of Growing Up Digital

Don Tapscott's Eight Shifts of Interactive Learning:

1.  From linear to hypermedia learning.
N-Gens' experiences with technology are not linear.  Access to information has been interactive and not sequential.

2.  From instruction to construction and discovery.
Tapscott quotes Seymour Papert who says, "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery (p. 143)."  The Constructivist theory of learning states that people learn best and retain knowledge by doing, not by being passive recipients of information.

3.  From teacher-centered to learner-centered education.
A teacher-centered classroom is focused on the teacher's interests and employs mostly broadcast learning.  A learner-centered classroom entails learning experiences that are tailored for each child's abilities, learning style, and other factors that may influence that child's learning.  This classroom would involve student-to-student dialogue, collaboration, and projects.  It is not difficult to see that students would be more engaged and have deeper learning in a classroom based upon their needs and interests.

4.  From absorbing material to learning how to navigate and how to learn.
Our world is rapidly changing.  Students can no longer just take in the information we feed them because that information can quickly become obsolete.  They need to know how to find the information they desire and how to synthesize it to make it comprehensible.

5.  From school to lifelong learning.
With the fast-paced growth of knowledge in our society, students need the ability to continue to learn throughout life.  We can no longer count on the knowledge that we gain throughout our formal education being enough to see us through.  As Tapscott writes, "This is a reflection of the knowledge explosion in which the knowledge base of humanity is now doubling annually (p. 146)."

6.  From one-size-fits-all to customized learning.
The one-size-fits-all learning is a product of a culture built on the mass-production style of the industrial revolution.  Tapscott forwards education based on the students as individuals. Technology allows the flexibility for each learner to, as Papert said, "discover their own personal paths to learning.  This will make it possible for the dream of every progressive educator to come true:  In the learning environment of the future, every learner will be 'special' (p. 146)."

7.  From learning as torture to learning as fun.
"...to keep, hold, or maintain in the mind," and "to receive and take into consideration (p 147)."  Tapscott refers to these third and fourth definitions of entertainment from Webster's Ninth College Dictionary to emphasize the need for entertainment in learning.  Through the use of entertainment, teachers can impart enjoyment, motivation and responsibility for learning to their students.

8.  From the teacher as transmitter to the teacher as facilitator.
The teacher as a transmitter is from the broadcast learning model.  The teacher as a facilitator of learning is Constructivistic.  The teacher taking a facilitator role allows the students to work with their peers and develop their research, collaboration, and analytical skills.