The Learning Circuits Blog posted a question and asked readers to respond. Basically, the question is, “Are there learning design differences for digital natives that we need to adjust to?”
My answer is yes. And there are others that agree and do a good job of explaining it – in the original post, here and here.
But I think we are missing the point. The question is not, “Do the old instructional design methodologies need to be updated” but instead the real question is, “How do we deliver the opportunity to Digital Natives to allow them to learn how and when and where they want?”
This last question doesn’t have anything to do with instructional design directly. It may, but it doesn’t assume it. There are so many different ways to learn that are out of our capacity to deliver. Heck, most of the stuff I don’t know myself. Should I find this information, create instructional design around it and deliver it? Why am I in the way? I need, instead, to step back and, in many (if not most) situations, let them teach each other.
There is NO WAY I can give them everything they want. So, instead of being an instructional designer, I become an instructional facilitator (which may include being an instructional designer), allowing them direct access to one another.
I believe this is where the goldmine is. Not in restructuring some of our instructional methodologies (although there is some value in this and does need to be done) but in exploring ways to speed up learning and lengthening retention by taking the middle man out.
Don’t get me wrong – these original questions are good questions to ask and should be asked and answered. And I don’t want it to appear that I am belittling in any way. But the questions can, and should, go further. They assume that we are still delivering the message, skills, instruction.
In keeping with the new culture that is taking form, who creates the content? Everyone. Who consumes it? Everyone. How is that being done? Through ‘facilitators’ – call them Wikipedia, call them blogs, call them RSS readers, call them phone calls, call them IM, call them hallway discussions, call them text messages, call them twits, call them whatever you want. But in this new culture, we (the average people) are not waiting around for people to create content. We are creating the content ourselves and then sharing it with others – refining ideas, skills and thoughts – where is the traditional instructional design in that?
This is, I believe, where the true goldmine is. We need to take a step back from ‘instructional design’ and look at learning from a more broad perspective and THEN integrate the Digital Natives. This way we can gain more of a holistic view of learning from their perspective.
