Keeping Up With Today's Learner

A learner of today is like a chameleon who is constantly changing his color to adapt to and survive in a constantly changing environment.  The learner of today is constantly changing his/her ways of thinking and learning to keep up with all the new knowledge that is surfacing so often in today's world. In his article A Learning Theory for the Digital Age George Siemens refers to the concept of half-life knowledge and how it relates to today's learner.  New knowledge is being born so often in today's world, such as technological advances and social learning environments, that people have to constantly change the the ways they think and the decisions they make due to this constant influx of new knowledge.  However, though learner's today are considered "digital natives," those who grew up learning from and through technology, educational systems still emphasize  and practice learning theories that are only concerned with the actual process of learning and "not with the value of what is being learned."
In his brief video, The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature, Siemens elaborates on the problem of educational systems today limiting the way they present information to today's learner based mainly on past theorist's ideas and research.  In this video he explains that it is human nature to make sense of the world around us by externalizing our thoughts, and that through this process meaning is being created and learning is happening.  For today's learner the way they externalize their thoughts and learn is through technology. And connecting with others through technology such as with online specialized learning communities are important activities that allow students to learn through others and from their experiences.  But as Siemens states, educators today have failed to keep up with today's

learner and adapt their ways of teaching and presenting information to meet the ever changing learning environments of these learners:  "To begin to see the power of connecting in an external fashion really requires that we rethink and rewrite much of how we'er currently conceiving  learning and knowledge in our academic settings."