In 2001 American educationalist, Marc Prensky, declared that “Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” He coined the term ‘digital natives’ to describe how today’s students have grown up and spent their entire lives immersed in digital technologies. He argued that today’s students fundamentally think about and process the world in a way that is different to previous generations.
Prensky explained that no matter how much some might hope that our students would assimilate to our traditional mediums of education, there could be no way back to the bygone era of chalk and talk. No; what is needed is for our education systems to catch up with our students are reevaluate two things:
- What we teach (content)
- How we deliver it (methodology)
Most of us in education will be aware that curriculum change can be a frustratingly slow process. However, our delivery is something we have rather more control over.
For a long time here at tute, students have told us that they enjoy tute lessons. When we ask them why this is, they often use terms such as ‘immersive,’ ‘interactive’ or reference a positive learning ‘environment.’ If there was ever evidence of our students being digital natives, this vocabulary is it!
This is why students enjoy learning online; as digital natives, they want immersive, interactive educational experiences and environments and this is what Tute offers them.
