Digital Natives in Online Learning Environments

Abstract

With the developments of information technologies there exists two different generations. One of these generations was born into the technology age and grew up with technology. The other one meet with technology in the late ages. Thus, they have different habits, different expectations and different learning preferences. In the meantime, with the developments in technology and Internet infrastructure, online learning environments have become popular as an alternative learning environment in higher education. The aim of this chapter is to guide instructors to design their online learning environments based on the new generation's needs and expectations. To learn about new generations' needs a survey questionnaire was conducted on higher education students. The results indicated that, todays' students spends a lot of time on the Internet specifically in social media environments and they commonly get connected to the Internet with their mobile phones which necessitates a new design in online learning environments.