When asked about the most powerful trend affecting community colleges, Mark David Milliron didn’t hesitate yesterday. “The biggest trend is that we’re really swimming in a world of learning swirl,” Milliron, a technology specialist and president of Catalyze Learning International, told a crowd on the last day of The Chronicle‘s technology conference in Tampa.
It sounded dizzying. And Milliron meant it that way. Community colleges are taking in students from three generations at once, each one with a different approach to technology and learning. Colleges have to account for all of them, as well as different degrees of tolerance for new technology among faculty and staff.
The three generations are baby boomers, Generation X, and the newest one, the so-called “Net Gen.” Baby boomers grew up with technology such as the telephone and television. Gen X was part of the personal computer age, and knows about things such as email. The Net Gen, however, lives on the Web. They spend an average of 22 hours a week using the Internet for buying things, social networking, entertaining themselves, and learning.
All of these people mix in a community college classroom or online education environment, Milliron said. So it is up to the college to find a happy medium, a way of serving all comers.
To do this, he is a big fan of people helping people. He mentioned “near-peer” programs, in which students more familiar with a particular kind of software or gadget can help students who are less comfortable. Milliron also talked about colleges that use student technology assistance programs. In those, IT students help older faculty gain experience with new technology.
There is a cost for colleges that don’t integrate technology into learning: they drive students away. Milliron noted that some faculty want wireless access blocked in their classrooms. Some colleges don’t provide it in common areas. So students, instead of staying on campus, will head off to coffee shops with wireless hot spots to get on the Internet.—Josh Fischman