Digital technologies form an important part in the education of a majority of the current student population – whom Prensky (2001), as quoted in Gu, Zhu, and Guo (2013), referred to as digital natives. It is imperative for instructors to infuse best practices with digital technologies into the teaching-learning process in order to cater to the needs of millennials. According to Prensky (2010), majority of the current students are digital natives who find traditional teaching methods, such as 'tell and test', not interesting. Although digital natives concentrate on technology-infused activities, such as video games and films, their concentration in class is motivating. This makes it imperative to revise current teaching-learning activities and infuse them with digital technologies in order to motivate students to learn. Best practices with digital technology include project-based learning, individualized instruction, focusing on skills and content, shifting the role of the instructor in the classroom, cooperative learning, teaching instructors about digital technologies, and making skills and knowledge relevant and real.
Action Plan for Implementing Best Practices in Digital Technologies in Education .
This paper will outline an action plan for implementing best practices with digital technologies. Specifically, it seeks to highlight the ways in which instructors can move from traditional teaching methods and infuse a myriad of digital technologies into the teaching-learning process to cater to the needs of millennial students. Digital technologies are highly volatile – thus the program should be continuous by always seeking to incorporate the best-suited digital technologies even when they are emergent and/or keeping up with their modifications for the benefit of education (Provenzo, 1986). The proposed changes will take place at institutional level where the leader, or change facilitator, will continually work with change implementers (instructors), towards realization of the desired outcomes – holistic, relevant, and realistic education.