Students of 2014

How will we teach the freshman coming in 2014? This article gives us a clue about what students of 2014 might be like.

Students of 2014

No e-mail? Never a wristwatch? Never used a phone with a cord? What will we need to do in our classes to reach these students in a meaningful way?

I posted a blog recently about using the Second Life Avatar program. Perhaps incorporating this program or using it in part of a class, might be a way to go.
Right now, a pre-medical student can dissect a frog with an online program. That saves a lot of frog killing and is a good way to accomplish that particular task. However, we would want our physician to have worked on a real human, before diagnosing our problem. Someone researching a plant for a wonderful new drug could do a lot of research on the Internet. They also would need hands on experimentation.

Interactive videos are available now and I use them quite a bit in my computer application classes. The students still need the hands on work or they will not be able to use these programs. A question I ask myself is if I should make it so they can work from their IPod, IPad, or other electronic device, rather than a computer. I do not have an answer. In fact, I mostly have questions.

My opinion is that the subject matter should drive what technologies are used. Anyone that wants to chime in, please do.