Last week I was at the 8th International JTEFS/BBCC Conference "Sustainable Development. Culture. Education at UNESCO in Paris. The picture is the view fron the UNESC canteen :-) I presented in the Education for Sustainable Development and E-learning strand, which looked at what are the challenges of e-learning/blended learning for higher education institutions? E-learning as the issue of non-formal education and E-learning and communication. My presentation was entitled "The Digital Natives Meme. Why context is more important than technology with the following abstract -"Rising student numbers, greater funding pressure and an increasing consumerisation of education pose dilemmas for educators. Additionally, we are told that technology is going to transform education; that a new breed of young people, who have not known a world without pervasive electronic technology, are entering education; that this will lead to a paradigm shift and those unable or unwilling to make the change will be swept away. However, recent research shows this may not be the case. Using examples from an ongoing study of university students' experiences of using technology, this paper argues that a debate that is framed by thoughts of an army of homogeneous digital natives will produce technology 'solutions' that are unsustainable. It will go on to argue that a more context based approach towards the use of technology is needed in order to provide sustainable solutions to the issues facing educators in the 21st century."
The Digital Natives Meme. Why context is more important than technology
View more presentations from Chris Hall.
Overall the conference was pretty good with a number of excellent presentations from Dr Peter Purg(Slovenia),Dr Richard R. Jurin(USA) and Dr Mark Mifsud (Malta)
