Students not as tech-savvy as we think
Laura Blankenship June 6th, 2007
At the beginning of a workshop today, I explained that it’s a common misconception that today’s students live and breathe technology and therefore, we, as educators should pile on the technology to appeal to them. Many college students have Facebook accounts, use IM, frequent YouTube and can manage multiple email accounts, but not all, and those that do are not usually accustomed to using those tools as a way to learn or to engage in critical inquiry.
An article in Innovate, Questioning Assumptions about Students Expectations of Technology Use in College Classrooms, is an ethnographic study of students and their use of technology both in and out of the classroom. It found that students prefer more traditional methods of teaching in the classroom and resist using computers in a classroom setting. The study focused, it seemed, on laptop use specifically and did not discuss other technology that faculty might have used to enhance the classroom experience, such as social software, course management systems, or 3D modeling.
The researchers claimed at the beginning that they “sought to understand the ways in which liberal arts college students use technology to make meaning of their college experience in both academic and non-academic spaces on campus.” However, it seems they mainly discovered how students used laptops, which seems a very limited view of student technology use. They conclude that “we may not be at the point of changing the classroom practices of either professors or students, contrary to common assumptions.” But they never really question why. All they really showed was that neither group was ready for laptops in the classroom. I’d like to see a further exploration of students’ resistance to other forms of technology in the classroom, a resistance I think is real in many cases and one I think it’s worth investigating further. My own assumptions are that technology isn’t even introduced in the learning experience in the first place and when it is, it may not be well planned, so that students don’t understand why it’s being used and therefore resist it.
Some of the references in the paper may answer my questions, so that’s my next immediate exploration.
Finally got to this one, Laura. Your impressions match mine. I need to read the paper more closely, but it does seem to me another (dismal) example of a very narrow understanding of teaching and learning technologies–and the world we live in.
Thanks for blogging this.
You said, “My own assumptions are that technology isn’t even introduced in the learning experience in the first place and when it is, it may not be well planned, so that students don’t understand why it’s being used and therefore resist it.”
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, but of course that is just my opinion.