Over the last twenty-five years the exponential growth of ICT (information and communications technology) has had a profound effect on our society. It has sparked a shift from an industrially focused culture to what is known as the Information Age.

We now live in a world where information is easily created and shared and where its skilled application is highly valued. This has significant ramifications for education, as the new tools and new ways of thinking necessitate dramatic new approaches to teaching and learning. This directly affects the design of interactive multimedia learning resources.

The so-called Net Generation (Net-Gen) are the first generation to grow up knowing nothing other than this highly connected, information rich world. As “digital natives”, they “think and process information fundamentally differently.” (Prensky 2002). Their use of ICT and attitudes toward ICT and information in general offer us a set of ideas for a new approach to education which embraces the information age. Among these are an emphasis on collaboration, connectivity, flexibility and experiential learning.

The needs and attitudes of the Net-Gen aren’t the only factors that will influence education and multimedia design in the coming years – ongoing research in education, the priorities of industry and society, emerging technology as well as institutional and teacher needs will all play a part.

Examining the key traits attributed to the Net-Gen however allows us to consider practical changes in approach and design that can be made today.

Who are the Net Generation?

While the precise years are disputed, it is generally agreed that the Net-Gen were born in the period between the early 1980s and 2001. They are also referred to as Generation Y, Echo Boomers, the iGeneration and their apparently preferred term, Millennials. (Wikipedia: Generation Y, 2007)

Alan Kay, a member of the 1970’s Xerox PARC team, has described technology as “anything that wasn’t around when you were born” (Frand, 2000). This means that for much of the Net-Gen, personal computers, mobile phones, digital audio, sophisticated computer graphics and even the Internet aren’t considered technology, they are simply a fact of life.

While it is obviously simplistic to ascribe any characteristic to a large group of individuals, there are a number of traits which appear common to many members of the Net-Gen.

Interested in technology: Having grown up with technology, Net-Gen students consider themselves far more Internet savvy than their teachers and report seeing better ways to use technology than they are offered in the classroom.(Oblinger 2003) “Every time I go to school I have to power down”, complains one student according to Prensky. (2001)

Emphasis on collaboration: They gravitate toward group work (Howe & Strauss, 2000) and want to work with people they click with. (Raines 2003) . Massively multiplayer online games popular with the Net-Gen such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft are strongly based on collaboration.

Need Connectivity: In some ways related to their preference for collaboration, the Net-Gen make heavy usage of a plethora of communications tools including SMS, instant messaging, email and particularly online communities such as MySpace to maintain connections with friends and family. This connectivity is 24/7 and the Internet in particular means that it isn’t limited by geography.

Another interesting aspect of connectivity in online communications is that the Net-Gen have “blasé attitudes about the loss of private space” and an “expectation of speaking to an audience even in personal communication” (Wikipedia:Internet Generation, 2007)

Multitasking: Multitasking is considered to be the most practical response to the exponentially increasing sea of information we find ourselves in. (Frand, 2000). As highly connected digital natives more familiar with this environment, the Net-Gen are considered particularly adept at navigating a range of tasks simultaneously, which may include both work and play.

Goal oriented: Net-Gen learners are more focused on skills than knowledge. “In many disciplines, the half-life of information is measured in months and years. From this perspective, what a person can do is more important than what degree they obtained”(Frand, 2000 p.17)

Confident and optimistic: The Net-Gen are seen as highly positive, confident and optimistic. They expect respect (Raines, 2002) and, conscious of their power as consumers, will either speak their mind or vote with their feet if they don’t get what they want.

According to Saulwick Muller Social Research (2006): “Not only has this generation been born into a prolonged period of economic growth, but they have come too late to experience the severe economic restructuring brought about by globalisation and the information revolution.

They have grown up understanding and accepting that the future is all about mobility, adaptability and change. For the most part, they are preparing for it and they embrace it.”(p.5)

Seek instant gratification: The combination of a customer service oriented world and the immediacy of digital technology means that members of the Net-Gen are felt to have “zero tolerance for delays”. (Frand, 2000 p.22).

Marc Prensky (2001) sums most of these traits up nicely when he says that “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work.” (p.2)

Implications for designing interactive multimedia learning resources.

In addition to the obvious technological changes, the Information Age (and globalisation) has had a profound impact on the way people work and live. The increasing rate at which new information and knowledge is generated means that learning has become a lifelong process.

UNESCO’s 1996 report Learning : The Treasure Within (The Delors report) identified a key pillar of education for the future as “Learning to know – the mastery of learning tools rather than the acquisition of structured knowledge. It includes learning to learn and developing concentration, memory skills and the ability to think”. (RED CIT 2000 P.1)

The Information Age, lifelong learning and shifts in family, work and leisure priorities present educational multimedia designers with a range of new opportunities and challenges.

The need for more educational content and new approaches, in combination with enhanced access to tools to create richer and more sophisticated learning resources means that multimedia designers could be well positioned to make a significant contribution to education in coming years.

The learning needs of the Net-Generation feature heavily here and it is their particular desire for these following qualities to be a part of their education that fuels much of this demand. Many of these qualities have also been identified in educational multimedia research as adding to learning.

Flexibility: Flexibility encompasses notions of enhancing access to learning as well as catering to different learning styles. Kearns (1999) takes the position that we can and should “use modern technologies to widen equitable access to education and training opportunities”.

The Internet has long been seen to be a powerful platform for the distribution of information untrammeled by time or space, two significant impediments to learners in the past. It could be argued that multimedia learning resources have been used in one form or another for decades in distance learning practice to address these issues however the speed with which they are now available makes learning more accessible than ever.

Mobile technology takes this accessibility and flexibility to a higher level still by allowing learners to access sophisticated multimedia learning resources anywhere. Many mobile phones, PDAs and other devices support HTML pages, Flash objects, audio and video – any of which could be learning resources. The use of audio and video as podcasts and vodcasts respectively is now well established and offers another option to educational multimedia developers. RFID tags and QR codes (Simpson, 2006) are further options that might considered with mobile technology.

Multimedia learning objects also offer flexibility in terms of providing a wider choice of learning activities which cater to different learning styles. Developers should consider different ways to achieve the same learning outcomes in the process of designing multimedia resources.

Relevance: As already mentioned, the half life of information has dropped significantly in the Information Age (Oblinger, 2003) and this has the potential to quickly outdated some learning resources.

Developers might consider embedding weblinks to information sources (though this too isn’t foolproof), reviewing created resources to a schedule or making some of their multimedia learning resources customisable, allowing teachers/users to make changes if relevant data changes. (Customisability is an underpinning principle of Flexible Learning Toolbox Learning Objects.)

A more significant application of relevance in multimedia learning resources comes when they take the form of simulations and games with problem based approaches. This offers the Net-Generation (and other users) the experiential, skill developing learning that they prefer and enhances learning by making it authentic and context based.

Dalgarno (2001) feels that these support a Constructivist approach to learning, particularly in that they “allow the learner to explore, manipulate, or construct within a world and consequently to discover real or abstract concepts within the domain”. (p.156)

The development of simulations can be an intensive process however the increasing sophistication of multimedia production software as well as the support of growing user communities means that it is getting easier by the day.

It is equally important however for developers to resist the temptation to make use of all of the bells and whistles available to them in the increasingly sophisticated multimedia production software if it is not directly related to the learning content. Pretty pictures and interesting sounds have been found repeatedly to actually depress the learning benefits of multimedia resources. (Colvin Clark & Mayer, 2007)

Interaction: The interactivity of games and simulations is a factor that appeals to many users including the Net Generation. A well designed game/simulation focuses the learners attention and the sense of fun and user control offers high levels of engagement. (Prensky, 2001).

Interaction also has the potential to offer feedback, another key motivator. Virtually any multimedia learning resource can incorporate “practice tools, which require the learner to carry out specific tasks or answer specific questions and provide feedback on the learner’s performance” (Dalgarno, 2001 p.156).

This addresses another of the key Net Generation traits, their impatience with delay.

One issue for educational multimedia developers to consider is the actual nature of the interaction that learners have with the multimedia resources. Does it have to be about pushing buttons or typing? Could it include speaking, singing, gesturing with the mouse, drawing with a tablet, using a web cam? (Dalgarno, 2001)

Structure: The organisation of knowledge is a key factor in teaching and learning. Multimedia offers “more complex and interesting ways to structure and access knowledge.” (Bates, 2000, p.42).

A multimedia learning resource might be structured in a linear fashion like a book, it might work as a website with a hypertext structure or it might consist of a linked list of smaller, self contained learning object, breaking the knowledge up into digestible chunks. These are but three possible approaches of many. The nature of the information age suggests that we need to consider any number of approaches to sharing information. (Bates, 2000)

The goal oriented nature of the Net Generation as well as their desire for flexibility and multitasking tendencies suggests that multimedia learning resources developed with them in mind should offer multiple paths to knowledge acquisition.

Collaboration: The question of collaboration raises a number of questions as to the very nature of multimedia resources and few answers.

Even with interactivity and feedback, do multimedia resources still primarily using a traditional transmission model for learning?

What options are available for learners to collaboratively work on tasks?

Is there a capacity for communication through a multimedia resource?

Could a blog or a wiki be considered a multimedia resource?

Should multimedia learning resources contribute to scaffolding knowledge (or even higher level skills) which the individual learner adds to collaboratively in a separate space or tool?

Given the teamwork oriented, collaboration favouring nature of the Net Generation, these are some of the most significant issues of all to consider in the development of multimedia learning resources.

Bates (2000) makes the salient point that “Learners still need to discuss and argue, to challenge and question what they have learnt”. (p.41). I would extend that to include work together and generate collective knowledge.

As the standard bearers of the Information Age, educational multimedia developers can learn a lot from the Net Generation. Ongoing research in education continues to enlighten our understanding of how multimedia can be more effective but their instinctive use of contemporary ICT and unquestioning acceptance of it as today’s paradigm are driving the need for change now.

It means that the design of interactive multimedia learning resources needs to be more flexible, relevant, engaging and particularly collaborative – and that’s a good thing for all.

(As a Gen-Xer, I would like to mention however that the founders of Google, MySpace, YouTube, Blogger, Odeo and Wikipedia are all Gen X.)

References.

Kearnes, P. 1999 VET in the learning age – the challenge of lifelong learning for all, Paper presented at Post-compulsory Education and Training: Looking to the future, Canberra 27 August 1999.

Raines, C. (2003). Connecting Generations: The Sourcebook for a new workplace. Mississauga, Ontario : Crisp Publications

RED CIT (2000 August) What is Lifelong Learning? Research Digest Canberra: Research and Evaluation Department CIT

Howe, N. & Strauss W (2000). Millennial Rising: The next great generation. New York, NY : Vintage Books

Oblinger, D. (2003). Boomers, Gen-Xers & Millennials. Understanding the new students. Educause Review, July-August, 37-47

Bates, T. (2000). Teaching, Learning and the Impact of Multimedia Technologies. Educause Review, September-October, 38 – 43

Frand, J (2000). The Information Age Mindset Educause Review September/October, 14-24

Prenksy, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).

Dalgarno, B (2001) Technologies supporting highly interactive learning resources on the web: An Analysis Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 12. 153-171

Joshua Schachter. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Schachter

Larry Page. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page

Steve Chen. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Chen

Chad Hurley. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Hurley

Jawed Karim. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawed_Karim

Jimmy Wales. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales

Evan Williams. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Williams

Generation Y. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y

Information Age. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age

Internet Generation. (2007, May 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Generation

Saulwick Muller Social Research (2006 October). Fearless and Flexible – Views of Gen Y. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.dsf.org.au/papers/189/SaulwickReport3_0.pdf

Simpson, C. (2006) Make barcodes that can be read by mobile camera and provide web links. Retrieved May 27^th, 2007 from http://citfls.blogspot.com/2006/09/make-barcodes-that-can-be-read-by.html