Tools for Teaching the Digital Natives

Abstract

University educators and researchers face new generations of “digitally native” students, who approach academic disciplines in novel ways, thus creating a changed university-learning environment that demands new ways of building knowledge in a bottom-up process. A case in point is the area of corporate communication where we need new methods of approaching adult cultural/communicative learning since these integrated competences are much asked for in the business community. One way of approaching university pedagogy within these fields is asking whether social software could provide better tools that support social, collaborative processes that are fun, motivating and better support learning. The article therefore discusses collaborative and individualized learning processes and how social software platforms may better harness collective and personal knowledge in order to enhance learning outcome. The theoretical foundations of the article have been established at the crossroads between general learning theory, cultural/communicative learning theory and social media applications that facilitate collaborative, synchronous and interactive learning platforms. Data evaluation and comparisons in regard to learning outcomes are based on empirical data from two cases applying different learning platforms used in CBS programme courses involving culture and communication learning elements.