Skills Gap for the Digital Natives….Really?
change, student learning September 6th, 2007There is a lot of buzz around campus these days about digital natives getting technology. We witnessed students texting, taking pictures with their cells, IM’ing, asking about online access to….X, the list goes on. If “getting it” means using it then it’s true. Natives see technology as a transparent means of communicating, finding information and hanging out.
The point is that we (anyone over the age of 35) assume that students don’t need support with any kind of technology, that somehow by some miracle they know how to configure their bluetooth access, create a blog, subscribe to syndicated content, create digital presentations, etc. It’s not a wrong assumption it’s just not entirely accurate. The 2007 Horizon Report confirms anecdotal evidence that students do need support with choosing a tool and creating meaningful academic content (caveat: the definition of “support” needs to be examined that might take on the flavor of a mentor/tutor model versus a “how-to” skill building model).
“There is a skills gap between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content. Although new tools make it increasingly easy to produce multimedia works, students lack essential skills in composition, storytelling, and design. In addition, faculty need curricula that adapt to the pace of change and that teach the skills that will be needed—even though it is not clear what all those skills may be.
Students’ views of what is and what is not technology are increasingly different from those of faculty. From small, flexible software tools to ubiquitous portable devices and instant access, students today experience technology very differently than faculty do, and the gap between students’ view of technology and that of faculty is growing rapidly.”
So what does this tell us? Rather then continue down the beaten path of technology workshops that focus on skill building for faculty (still a valued means for introducing technology) why not develop new models for showing/sharing how technology might be used to engage students. Modeling technology use with and for students comes to mind and is another way to make technology transparent. The first step in making this happen is to open the door to students and invite them to help shape academic use of technology.
JENNY
September 9th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
In a class of 15 first-year students, although all of them use Facebook, IM, and texting daily, only 2 had ever blogged, 3 had read a blog, and almost none had any idea what RSS was, how it worked, or what a feed reader was.
My point simply is that many of these digital natives don’t even have some of what we might think of as basic technical skills, or when they do, they’re focused in particular areas, many of which aren’t directly useful (or at least not used) in their classes.
I agree with the need to work with students on digital composition, storytelling and narrative, but we shouldn’t assume that they have the skill sets yet either. [Though they seem to adapt pretty quickly with a little exposure to those tools.]