Abstract
Technology is playing and increasingly significant role in transforming the present-day education process, which is becoming more and more learner-centred and collaborative, as we can notice from our own teaching experience. This is in keeping with the mindset and expectations of the new generation of students (often identified generically as "the Net Generation", "Net Geners", "Generation Y" or "the Millenials") which, among other characteristics, distinguishes itself from previous generations by being technology savvy and eager to create (not just "consume") Internet content such as blogs or YouTube videos, as noted by many writers on education.
Thus, apart from the emergence of e-learning as a low-cost, convenient, democratic alternative to classic face-to-face teacher-student interaction, the new web tools and applications (such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, webinars, virtual worlds, and even learning groups organized on social networking sites) are re-configuring the entire areas of teaching and learning, and are re-defining educational goals.
The present paper aims to identify the most effective in- and out-of-class educational uses of some of the major web tools available that may ensure an engaging, participatory, student-empowering learning environment as an addition to the traditional classroom, especially for the study of foreign languages at university level. Our main tenet is that while technology alone, no matter how well-adjusted to the learning needs of Generation Y, cannot automatically guarantee the success of the education process in the absence of appropriate teaching and learning strategies and goals, educators' inability to tailor their strategies to fit their students' new way of acquiring and processing information in the digital age will certainly result in education failure. |
Keywords
collaborative model, net generation, digital native, digital immigrant, autonomy, empowering, participatory learning environment |