e-Learning Fundamentalism

After having read some of the articles relating to the discussion on 'digital natives' versus 'digital immigrants' I have come to the conclusion that most of them have been written with the intent of sensationalism if not pure point scoring.These opinionated briefings bear little resemblence to the real world in the class room, both from the educators and the learners point of view. There is a growing body of evidence (see references below) that although 16-20 year olds may be more IT-literate than an age group 10 years older this literacy is entirely restricted to their private life, in particular towards their social, entertainment and leisure time activities. When it comes to education they are traditionalists who prefer the time-honoured delivery f2f, talk and chalk.I think it is about time that we as technologist take note of this and tread carefully when 'throwing' technology at our 'customers' since otherwise we may run the risk of them loosing confidence in the sector entirely.E-learning will remain a nich market for the foreseeable future, catering mostly for distance learners in a variety of contexts.
1. Garcia and J. Qin. Journal of Online Education (2007)http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=3792. Student Expectation Study (2007) , undertaken by IPSOS MORI on behalf of JISChttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/studentexpectationsbp.aspx