Transformative learning : the use of learning technologies by postgraduate education students

M.Ed. (ICT in Education)Marc Prensky (2009) described the future as being “unimaginably complex”. The rapid development of technology contributes to this complexity of the future and is an integral part of the changing world. Learning technologies should therefore be a vital part of education that is aimed to prepare and equip learners, regardless their age, for the world and the future. I am of the opinion that education should therefore co-evolve with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The constant increase in the variety and complexity of available ICTs makes on-going research in the field of learning technologies essential. However the quality of this research is constantly criticised (Jones & Binhui, 2011). Demands for more robust research studies are forcing research to become more complex, difficult and time-consuming but can lead to wisdom (Prensky, 2009). This research project focused on the attainment of digital wisdom to the benefit of adults that who are inexperienced technology users, specifically postgraduate education students who are also teachers. A generational debate regarding the use of ICTs in education, originated around the start of the new millennium when Marc Prensky (2001) made declarations concerning the influence that the presence and use of technology can have on various aspects of peoples’ lives. Prensky (2001) was one of the first to imply a generational division in this regard when he named young people who use digital technology with confidence because they grew up with, and were surrounded by it since the day they were born, “digital natives”. In contrast he called the adult generation “digital immigrants”. He based the distinction between these two generations on the metaphor of language, claiming that a digital immigrant will always retain a “foreign accent” when using technology while digital natives use technology with the same ease that they speak their mother tongue. Prensky proposed that the digital native generation have different expectations of life in general, and also more specifically of learning..