The New Millennium Learners (individuals born in the early 1980s or later) grew up surrounded by digital media and that implies significantly different learning styles from previous generations. Several terms have been used to describe this generation of learners: “Digital Natives”, “Net Generation” or “New Millennium Learners”. They have also been dubbed the Homo Zappiens, for their ability to control different sources of digital information simultaneously.
Not all people born after the early 1980s display the “typical” properties of NML (while some individuals born before do) and there are profound discrepancies between different countries and within different countries, reflecting prevailing digital divides.
Compared to previous generations of learners, they are digitally literate, they think more visually and in a non-linear manner, they practise multitasking and give preference to multimedia environments. They are continuously connected with their peers and “always on”. In learning environments they are easily bored, need a variety of stimuli not to get distracted and expect instant feedback.
To come to terms with the information overload of the digital era, they need to employ learning strategies that involve searching, managing, re-combining, validating and contextualising information.
According to various studies on the use of digital communication technologies among university students confirm that the generation of NML can be characterised as:
(i) connected and mobile;
(ii) skilled at multitasking;
(iii) social and interactive;
(iv) results oriented.
To cope with the abundance of information available, students have to develop new skills to "survive" in the knowledge and digital society:
i) stay focused in important tasks;
ii) connect with each other to be informed;
iii) think creatively and critically.
These are the reasons why the teacher of this new digital era must explore new tools in the educational context, bearing in mind the digital literacy and e-strategies. The whole educational process is now student-centred, giving learners the necessary critical thinking ablity to overcome the danger of globalization and manipulation.
It is crucial to stimulate curiosity and enthusiam, so that students can be full digital citizens. With this change in learning and teaching paradigms, the role of the teacher must be to incentivate learning and thinking and to promote collective intelligence production. The information flood won't stop, so we will have to teach our students to "swim" or even better to "navigate".
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new learning paradigms /
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