Background

The unprecedented growth in the power of computing and the internet raises challenges in the planning of the education of today's children. The total body of human knowledge is growing and the ability to access it from any computer is growing. Google now indexes 20,000,000,000 pages and this body of knowledge is available to anybody with web access. The changing nature of the knowledge base and its ease of access has deep implications for the roles of schools and teachers.

The kinds of things which can be done with computers is also changing, the skills which today's children will require have not yet been thought of. According to Prensky (1), todays children will be adults in a world where computers may be 1,000,000,000 times more powerful than today

The computer is becoming the dominant form of information transfer and entertainment.

Prensky (2) estimates that by the time an individual reaches 21 years of age they will have spent:
 * 5,000 hours reading
 * 10,000 hours playing video games
 * 10,000 hours on the cell phone
 * 20,000 hours watching TV

In addition, he estimates the individual will have sent 200,000 emails

Computer games outstrip film in economic terms.(//need// //quote? statistics? &TV//)

Children have less need for facts (Instruction) than for the higher order cognitive and metacognitive skills that will allow them to access the facts that they will need to use in the future. Games can be a powerful tool for learning in this way. The move from fact retrieval to higher order skills is recognised in the VELS. (3)

(1)Podcast, ""Engage me or Enrage Me" Marc Prensky http://www.surfnet.nl/bijeenkomsten/owd2005/prensky/ (2) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently? By Marc Prensky [|http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf] (retrieved 17/5/06) (3) Victorian Essential Learning Standards http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/index.html
 * Footnotes**

//Cant find the reference for Oblingers statistics on games & TV, she put up graphs at the Vic. February conference TF May20//