Generation Edge

Although I don't officially teach, I do work in an educational environment involving adults and children who use technologies to learn and communicate overall. Because of this, I can relate and understand the "Generation Edge" and differences from both children and adults. I am also comfortable in that respect because my profession that involves using technology to enhance communication and I fascinated with how it has evolved for learning.

I guess you can call the adults and children that I work my "students" with a main objective to gain knowledge for desired results. The video and articles definately describe my "students" who model "digital natives" and "digital immigrants". There is an obvious difference in understanding and learning with the generation gap of how they learn but he desired outcomes are still the same and that is to gain knowledge. I find it at times to be a bit challenging to teach "digital immigrants" for learning because of new technology tools that they are not familiar with and on the other side of the coin, "digital natives" are just as challenging at times to teach because of their lack of thought processing when it comes understanding learning differences and styles. Either way, there are understanding differences relating to their behaviors, characteristics and traits that are hard to combine.

Characteristics of my  "digital immigrant students" are that they are comfortable, fast and quick to adjust with using technologies for learning. On the other hand my "digital immigrants student" have characteristics of being slower learners with technologies, are hesitant and intimidated  with learning using new technologies, and don't have as much drive when it come to learning using new technologies. Although there are obvious learning differences, the results are still satisfied.

As with the articles and videos, the ways of learning is different depending on when you are born. There is a generation gap in perceived learning styles using new technology, but  methodologies for learning is continuously growing for overall improvement of understanding and to come closer in closing the gap.

  

LaCema's Introduction

Hi All,

My name is LaCema Womack. I work at Wayne State University School of Medicine in the Division of Continuing Medical Education. I am a Project Manager with the responsibility of accreditation and compliance servicing for physicians Continuing Medication credit for licensing with a focus on alternative education, (i.e. online learning, video streaming, webcasting).

My hobbies include coaching and officiating Track & Field/Cross Country to children 7-19 years old. In addition, I enjoy computer graphic designing. 

I am taking this class for the purpose of fulling my online teaching certification in Instructional Technology. This class is potentially the last class that I will have take to fulfill my Plan of Work. I will using my certification as part of my profession development to market my self as as online instructor or facilitator.

I look forward to working with all of you in the class and sharing learning experiences.