The 21st-Century Digital Learner

The article describes how the students input or opinions are not weighted or valued in our educationl system. The educators think they can, by themselves and without the input of their students, design the future of education.

Kids have no choices at all about how they are educated. They are, for the most part, told what to do and when to do it. Unlike other businesses, where people spend millions of dollars researching what their consumers really want, when it comes to how we structure and organize our kids education, we generally don't make the slightest attempt to listen to, or even care, what students think about how they are taught.

The 21st Century-Digital Learner is so bored in traditional classrooms, that they don't pay attention. Students frustration is rising, because what they want and what they are receiving does not match at all. Some people believe the reason of their boredom comes from the contrast with the more engaging learning opportunities kids have outside the school. Others believe it is due to continuous partial attention (CPA)-a need to be a live node on the network, continually text messages, checking the cell phone, and jumping on e-mail.

But according to the author, the source of the problem is that today's kids hate being talked at. They hate when teaching is simply telling. They hate lectures and tune them out. The 21st century students prefer dealing with questions rather than answers, sharing their opinions, participating in group projects, working with real world issues and people, and having teachers who talk to them as equals rather than as inferiors.