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2007 ALA Annual Conference Session

Joan Lippincott: Instructing the Millennials

Associate Executive Director at the Coalition for Networked Information Joan Lippincott spoke of the need to understand the learning styles of the Millennial Generation and need for educational institutions to adopt new approaches to instruction. Learners need to be assisted in the transition from recreational use of technology to its academic and professional use.

She argued that changes in today's student behaviors are real and reflect their immersion in a communication and information-rich culture. There's a need for educational institutions to master new learning principles and styles. And there's a need to adopt new instructional technologies where technology is a vehicle and not an end.

Net Gens? Millennials? Digital Natives? Gen Yers? Dotneters? The generation born between 1982-1991 has grown up with a variety of new technologies, especially mobile communications to which they are continuously tethered.

There's a considerable amount of research on the learning styles of the Millennials as well as identifying the core skills needed for digital-age learners. Ms. Lippincott suggests two sources of additional information on this: the MacArthur Foundation digital media and learning initiative and Henry Jenkins from MIT.

According to Henry Jenkins, learning styles of the Millennials include:

• Ability to work in groups - collective intelligence
• Ability to evaluate reliability and credibility of different sources - judgment
• Ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details - multitasking
• Ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes - simulation
• Ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content - appropriation

Ms. Lippincott suggests libraries assume students are information producers. This reflects a convergence of literacies: writing, information literacy, technology and visual literacy.

To support learners in this convergence of skills, libraries will need to form new partnerships and master new technologies. Many libraries are already doing this and include Georgetown's Center for New Designs for Learning and Scholarship, Dartmouth's Student Center Research, Writing, and Information Technology (RWiT), University of Delaware's Student Multi-Media Design Center, Georgia Tech Library Presentation Rehearsal Studio.

Greater use of new technologies need to be used in instruction, including podcasts, wikis, social book marking, etc.

Instruction on intellectual property rights, copyright and creative common licensing will grow in importance. Standford University Eric Faden's video A fair(y) use tale represents one creative approach to this instruction.

Kathleen Burnett:

Associate Professor at Florida State University College for Information Kathleen Burnett spoke of using web 2.0 technologies in the classroom and that the learning styles of both digital immigrants and digital natives will need to be supported.

The impact of new media information and communications and new media has had positive impacts but also negative. In the last 20 years, the age group of 18-34 has moved from the most likely to read to the least likely to read compared to other age groups!

She suggested that based on the current research, the ideal learning environment for the digital native includes:

• Customization for individual needs
• Immediate and constructive feedback
• Increased learning options for experiential learning, including gaming and simulations
• Increased peer-to-peer learning
• More web-based options
• Interactive multimedia learning

Teachers should pull podcasts and vodcasts into their classrooms to bring additional voices into play. Teachers should use student podcasts, blogs and social networks to support small group discussion, and use wikis to support collaboration and to teach consensus-building and teamwork. Games and simulations should also be explored to engage spatial and kinetic learners.

She recommended reading “Meet the Future” by Brian O’Reilly in Fortune 142 (2000): 144-157, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project report "A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users."

Kathryn Shaughnessy:

Instructional Services Librarian at the St. John's University libraries Kathryn Shaughnessy spoke about the challenges of supporting distance learners in St. John's international Social Justice Program. The program includes both graduate and undergraduate learners.

The library's task was to use technology and online media to support library instruction.The library selected open source software so students could continue to create resources after they left the program and worked in their home countries. The library used Captivate [not open source] for tutorials, Audacity for podcasts, Wordpress for blogs, and PPwiki and Mediawiki for wikis. It used Refworks for RSS, which has a built in RSS reader, to distribute content. It also used Skype for chats and communication and Del.icio.us for social bookmarking.