21st Century Learning & Learners

When reading about 21st Century learners, the more I read the more my mind starts to go off on many tangents...all that apply and were sparked by something I read.  On one hand, it is great, on the other hand, it is driving me crazy.  I am a 21st century learner. I am part of the Net-Generation, however, there are still many aspects of myself that I prefer to do "old school."  Although I can edit papers on the computer, and sometimes I do, I often print them out and edit with pen and arrows and adding things in.  I wonder if this comes from loving to read, and preferring to look at paper rather than a screen more often than not.

Another point that continues to come up in reading about 21st century learners, and watching videos on the subject, is that they have to be multi-taskers.  As a teacher I am a multi-tasker, but have found that in general I need to be doing more than one thing at a time.  Sometimes that means having music or a television on in the background.  Chatting via text or IM with friends and family, etc.  There are times however when I just need to focus on one thing.

When going through a technology source I have that I read through Google Reader, I came across this article that talks about programming software for kids.  I just thought WOW. The article discussed how students collaborated to create things, and how they created games and elaborated on stories.  This reminded me of a higher level of learning on Bloom's Taxonomy but at a technology level.  I have had students create games after mastering a topic, but programming one would definitely take it to the next level!

While reading this article, it made me think of an episode from the Big Bang Theory... 

Another aspect that popped up in the reading from my class, was that the net generation prefers pictures/visuals over text (and before text).  This made me think of a website that I have come to love and use more and more in the past month or so.  I learned about social bookmarking sites D.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s and Diigo a couple years ago and really love the idea of them.  However, I think I love Pinterest even more, and I wonder if it is because it is so visual.  I like that I can see what I'm pinning.  I have always felt like visual learning was one of my strong suits and maybe that's because I fall in the digital native sort of category.