21st+Century+Learner

Most of us have met them. Whether we call them Digital Natives - Marc Prensky, Digital Children - Ian Jukes, Neo-Millennials - Dieterle-Dede-Schrier or 21st Century Learners - Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach they are increasingly becoming the future of teaching.

**So what are they?**
They are students who are shaped by their environment. The environment they are exposed to is media rich, immediate, fast, engaging, dynamic and instant. Its electronic and digital, Its a communication medium with instant gratification. Marc Prensky, described the array of media the students are exposed to in his papers on Digital Natives. This is not all of youth today, many still struggle to gain education, to have a classroom to be taught in or to have seen a computer, let alone used one. Nor is it limited to just students, Adults too, can be "Digital Natives" as there brains like the brains of our students will adapt to exposure to technology. but for those who by good fortune have had exposure for the entire of their lives to technology the effect is huge. Digital Natives, those people who, through consistent exposure to these factors and access to a variety of digital media, whose brains are adapted to using tehse tools; are engaged and motivated by the use of digital technologies. They are adept in the use of digital medium, and as Dieterle-Dede-Schrier, Ian Jukes, Gary Small (MD) and Marc Prensky insist, **they are wired to use these tools**. ==**So what is a Digital Native, a Digital Child, A Neo-Millennial or 21st Century Learner?**== It helps perhaps to look at a digital native in reference to someone we are familiar with: A teacher, who is more often than not, as Marc would describe them, a Digital Immigrant
 * [[image:http://edorigami.edublogs.org/files/2008/05/dnvsdi.jpg width="450" height="253" caption="dn vs DI"]] ||
 * dn vs DI ||

These changes in preferred method and mode of learning are changing and shaping the way we teach how we design and build our classrooms and how we are resourced or taking a measure of ICT integration. For teachers to engage and educate, to facilitate and motivate, our methods of teaching must match their methods of learning; our teaching spaces must reflect their learning spaces; our teaching tools and resources must support their learning strategies. There must be, in short, **a paradigm shift in education**. Teachers must become 21st Century learners and more.