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Introduction
What does the term learning space mean? Why not use classroom instead? As recently as a decade ago, classrooms were the primary locus for learning in higher education. Other spaces included the library, the faculty office (for individual mentoring), and perhaps the café in town. But classrooms were by far the single most important space for learning.
Since then, a great deal has changed. The World Wide Web has emerged as the primary way most people use the Internet. The Web has spawned a wealth of new, network-based applications, from digital music stores to new venues for scholarly publishing. Indeed, the availability of network access, in one form or another, is today almost taken for granted. Handheld devices have acquired a growing set of functions, providing a telephone, a digital camera, and an operating system running a variety of applications. Laptop prices have declined while increasing in functionality — to the point that their use exceeds that of desktops for most students.
In parallel with these developments in Information Technology (IT), an entire generation of learners has grown up using computers and other networked devices. While for previous generations IT was a kind of exotic overlay or an optional tool, for the Net Generation student, IT is essential. It is clear that IT and Net Gen students have had a mutually influential — almost symbiotic — relationship. The characteristics of Net Gen students mesh very closely with IT and IT's increasing mobility, its 24 x 7 availability, and its increasing value as a communications tool. Net Gen students are social and team oriented, comfortable with multitasking, and generally positive in their outlook, and have a hands-on, "let's build it" approach — all encouraged by the IT resources at their disposal. Net Gen students have embraced IT, using it in ways both intended and unforeseen by programmers. Their rapid and enthusiastic adoption of IT has, in turn, influenced its development, particularly with respect to Web-based services.
The New Classroom
These developments impact the locus of learning in higher education. The notion of the classroom has both expanded and evolved; virtual space has taken its place alongside physical space.
Over the past decade, higher education has invested millions of dollars in classroom technology. The addition of document cameras, DVD players, Internet access, and projectors (to name a few) has added new functionality to the classroom. It is now possible to bring much more diverse materials to the classroom, to present them in a variety of ways, and to devise new classroom activities for students. As a result, the concept of the classroom has expanded to include this set of new functions.
These new classroom capabilities have, in turn, sparked interest in new pedagogical approaches. Wireless networking, for example, makes real-time or synchronous interaction (such as real-time polling) among all class participants a very real (and increasingly practical) possibility. Videoconferencing makes it feasible for an invited expert from a remote institution to join a class session. Discussions, notes, and other in-classroom events can be captured and disseminated for further study. It is important to note that these approaches mesh well with the habits of Net Gen students, such as their enjoyment of social interaction, their preference for experiential learning activities, and their use of technology. In these and other ways, technology acts as the lever that makes it possible to develop new and more effective pedagogies. Hence, the classroom and the activities associated with it are evolving.
The resources used in higher education are increasingly digital and delivered via the network. In addition, network connectivity is increasingly portable. These two developments make it possible for learning to happen informally, in areas outside the traditional classroom, library, and faculty office. Student project teams can meet outside on the green, in a lounge, in any campus café — and they can meet almost any time of day. With wireless networking, numerous digital devices, and longer battery life, we are closer than ever to realizing the goal of fully ubiquitous access. This means that learning, too, can occur any time and anywhere.
Net Gen students, using a variety of digital devices, can turn almost any space outside the classroom into an informal learning space. Similar to the traditional classroom, educators have an important opportunity to rethink and redesign these non-classroom spaces to support, encourage, and extend students' learning environment.
Virtual Space
These changes catalyzed by technology make it clear that the term classroom, at least in its traditional sense, can no longer encompass where learning takes place. Equally obvious is that the space in which learning takes place is no longer just physical; it is virtual as well. The virtual space is an entirely new environment. Virtual space is any location where people can meet using networked digital devices. We should understand virtual space in its widest sense, referring not just to synchronous, highly interactive functions (such as chat, blogs, and wikis), but also to asynchronous functions such as e-mail and discussion threads.
Unlike physical spaces, virtual spaces come and go. They can be spontaneous as well as deliberate, synchronous, or asynchronous. Participants and their relationships in the virtual learning space can shift rapidly. Participants can also multitask, "inhabiting" more than one virtual space at a time. As networking technology matures and costs for devices such as laptops and handhelds decline, these virtual spaces play an increasingly larger role in all aspects of higher education.
Again an IT-based function — virtual space — meshes closely with Net Gen characteristics. Net Gen students are mobile, as is virtual space. Net Gen students are facile at multitasking and moving back and forth (sometimes rapidly) between real and virtual spaces. Net Gen students are comfortable with the fast tempo that this kind of multitasking implies. In short, virtual space is tailor-made for the work habits of Net Gen students.
It is clear that the virtual space is taking its place along side the classroom and other physical locations as a locus for learning. The result is that we are compelled to expand our concept of where learning occurs. Learning spaces encompass the full range of places in which learning occurs, from real to virtual, from classroom to chat room.
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