At the NSDL Annual Meeting last week, we got to see the usual great lineup of opening and closing speakers. One of the regulars by now at this meeting is Julie Evans, from Project Tomorrow. They do the great annual Speak Up surveys of schools that really tell us how students and teachers are using the Internet and what emerging technologies.

One of the major take-aways from the talk (though there were many) was her profile of the new learner that they’re seeing emerge. They call this student the “free-agent learner,” and see a number of characteristics in these students, including:

• Self-directed learning
• Untethered to traditional education
• Expert at personal data aggregation
• Understand the power of connections
• Create new communities
• Not tethered to physical networks
• Are spurred by experiential learning
• Are content developers, rather than just consumers
• Find the process of learning as important as the knowledge gained

Do these describe anyone you know? The average person that Project Tomorrow is identifying as a free-agent learner is a middle school student, but they may exist in your workplace, among your teaching staff, or even in your house. There is plenty more to say about the fascinating findings from this annual survey, so future posts may dive into some of the implications of this trend for digital learning. Do you notice any of these trends? What do you think they mean for our design or use of emerging technologies for education? Let us know in the comments.