How To Teach and Manage 'Generation Net

In this article  from Science Tech Today by Dan Tapscott suggests that today's kids, Generation Net have " different mental habits than their Boomer parents" and their Boomer teachers. He points out that:

They expect a conversation, rather than a lecture, and they're used to working in groups, rather than toiling alone. Digital immersion has even affected the way they absorb information. They don't necessarily read a page from left to right and from top to bottom. They might instead skip around, scanning for pertinent information of interest.

He concludes that

The old model, the sage on the stage, needs to be abandoned, and schools and employers need to look at education as an interactive, collaborative venture that lasts a lifetime.

The call to change pedagogy from the sage on the sage model is hardly new. Collaborative (or the older term cooperative) learning has an established research base. Learning to learn as opposed to learning facts has been a goal for some time. 

The Ponderable:

My reaction to this article was at first glance very positive. At second glance I was struck with the DUH syndrome - haven't we been talking about this for a long time, at least since the introduction of the SCANS skills. Why is this being treated as a novel approach.......