The MacArthur Foundation has published a report on the “Digital Youth Project”. This is a fascinating report on the findings of a research project that looked at young people’s informal use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and what they learn from it. This project is a significant contribution to the growing literature on the way ICT contributes to learning outside of formal educational settings. The major finding, that young people use ICTs to establish and communicatively participate in networks to develop and share knowledge, on their own initiative, suggests that educators have to start thinking very differently about the ways that they integrate ICTs in education. I think the general tendency is to look for ways to use ICTs to support what goes on in the classroom, but these findings suggest that it would make more sense to look for ways to use classroom practices to support communication and networking activities that young people already engage in. This is something that I have suggested in the past, but without the concrete evidence that this research provides. The authors of the report suggest the same,
“New role for education? Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions? “
The implications of these research findings are fairly obvious for those parts of the world where we can pretty much assume that young people are able to access ICTs in one way or another, but what of the developing regions where this is not as much of a given? I think there are obvious implications for them as well, because I believe that these findings should be taken as not relating specifically to education for the ICT savvy, but as an orientation for education in an increasingly globally connected world in general. In the case of developing regions, however, we probably need to dig a bit deeper to uncover appropriate educational practices than in the case of developed regions.
