Unicorns, Net Geners, and Other Mythic Creatures
By Lauren Marsh
Fact or fiction? Weaned on video games and immersed in multimedia, today’s students are technology experts when it comes to creating and sharing multimedia. They’re digital natives in contrast to their professors who are tourists in the digital landscape.
The myth of Net Generation students, according to J.D. Walker, coordinator of evaluation and research services at the Digital Media Center (DMC), Office of Information Technology, is that they’ve “been steeping in technology like little tea bags and so they know everything about it and nothing you can do will surprise them.” Walker works with a team to gather data from both students and faculty members about their relationships with technology through various methods such as surveys, focus groups, and panels. For example, surveys of technology use at the University have been conducted every other year since 2001. This year they were developed by the DMC’s evaluation and research team in consultation with the Academic Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) and implemented with the help of the University's Office of Institutional Research (OIR). Randomly selected students and faculty members across the University were asked to respond to Web survey questions about their level of comfort and experience with, perceptions of, and preferences related to technology. The resulting data will be summarized in reports that yield a “bird’s eye view of what’s going on with technology and education at our university. It’s giving us insight into how technology is changing the learning environment.”
Information we get from the surveys and other sources suggests there’s a lot students don’t know about technology that could affect their performance in technology-rich environments. For instance, the data indicates that our students may be technologically experienced, but they’re not technologically sophisticated. The typical University of Minnesota student has a lot of experience with communication and presentation technologies, but less with graphics programs and development and database technologies. Further, “students tend to learn technology on a need-to-know basis, learning exactly as much as they need to accomplish their goals and no more. This runs counter to the common perception of students as technological sophisticates who are capable of anything.”
The digital generation gap is real enough. Satisfaction with technology is strong amongst traditional-age students. Age is an indicator of learning styles as well: traditional-age students tend to be exploratory learners of technology, while their instructors prefer to learn more systematically with the aid of manuals and help files. Finally, such students’ daily experiences with technology are fundamentally different from those of their instructors and nontraditional students. For instance, the communication tools they favor are synchronous technologies—text and instant messaging—that emphasize immediacy and quick responses. Bulletin boards are old technology, and e-mail is something they might use to communicate with parents and professors.
So what’s an instructor to do? While student interest in and comfort with particular technologies represents an opportunity, technology use should be governed by what instructors want their students to accomplish. For instance, Walker points out that communication tools like instant messaging might facilitate brainstorming, but the rapid fire exchange of words they encourage doesn’t support reflection or sustained thought. Students might need support or guidelines to use technology effectively or to participate in an unfamiliar environment like a discussion board. While Net Geners do have very high levels of comfort and experience with particular technologies, and large numbers think teachers should integrate technology into their teaching, they want this to be in pedagogically sound ways. Instructors should keep in mind that the best uses of technology give student opportunities to learn, explore, and practice the knowledge and skills associated with expertise in a field.
Related Resources
- Read about the results of surveys distributed to University of Minnesota students and faculty members about their use of technology on our Technology Surveys page.
- Learn about other DMC research projects Evaluation and Research services page.
- Explore how podcasts can be used to meet educational needs of Millenial leaners at the March 7, 2007 TEL seminar and on our Meeting the Millennials Halfway: Expanding Teaching and Learning with Pod- and Vodcasting page.
