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In order to best serve the educational enterprise, we must design leaning spaces that optimize the convergence of the Net Generation, current learning theory, and information technology.
The notion of the classroom has both expanded and evolved; virtual space has taken its place alongside physical space.
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- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A shift in the teaching and learning paradigm is well under way, moving away from a transmission paradigm to a constructivist paradigm.
- Literary skills now include critical thought, persuasive expression, and the ability to solve complex scientific and organizational problems. Knowing now means using a well-organized set of facts to find new information and to solve novel problems.
- learners construct knowledge by understanding new information building on their current understanding and expertise
- learning as an active process, always based on the learner's current understanding or intellectual paradigm.
- Knowledge is constructed by assimilating new information into the learner's knowledge paradigm.
- The constructivist theory has important implications. The theory implies that learning is best served when it is:
  Contextual—taking into account the student's understanding
  Active—engaging students in learning activities that use analysis, debate, and criticism (as opposed to simply memorization) to receive and test information
  Social—using discussions, direct interaction with experts and peers, and team-based projects
- Research indicates that learners need to be active with respect to their own learning process and assessment. Net Gen students' goal and achievement orientation comes into play here: that achievement focus can be directed toward quizzes and exercises that assist learners in evaluating their progress toward learning goals.
- We should connect what happens in the classroom with what happens in informal and virtual spaces.
- Learning spaces should accommodate the use of as many kinds of materials as possible and enable the display of and access to those materials by all participants. Learning space needs to provide the participants—instructors and students alike—with interactive tools that enable exploration, probing, and examination.
- Learning does not stop once the instructor has left the classroom. Instead, the end of the class meeting marks a transition from one learning mode to another.
- Learning spaces are complex, containing a multitude of variables. One of the key variables is the institution itself. Learning spaces are institutional in scope—their implementation involves the institution's culture, tradition, and mission. These institutional factors must be taken into account in order to design learning spaces to meet the needs of Net Gen students.
- The starting point for rethinking learning spaces to support Net Gen students begins with an underlying vision for the learning activities these spaces should support. This vision should be informed by learning theory, as well as by recognition of the characteristics of the students and faculty who use these spaces. An institution's specific culture, organizational structure, and fiscal circumstances enter the equation, as well.

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