STOP Calling them the Net Generation!! (Please!)

(If you’re landing on the individual post page directly, this is an abstract for a conference/professional development presentation. See the speaking page for more details.)

The education industry, at all levels, has been inundated with the “net generation” and “digital native” rhetoric for more than a decade.  An uncountable number of conference presentations, technology initiatives, curricular changes and innovations, and faculty development projects have started with the assumption that we, as educators, are faced with a college learner of today that is radically different from the college learner of years past.  They’re just different.  Why?  Only one reason: they’ve been surrounded by ubiquitous technology their entire lives.  You’ve seen *that* presentation introduction 100x over… How many hours they surf the internet, play games, listen to music, text on their phones… blah blah blah blah.

QUESTION.  If all of that’s true, why do so many faculty have to spend so much classroom time and resources showing these technologically adept digital natives how to: submit an assignment via the LMS, set the page margins in MS Word per MLA format, enter a basic SUM() formula in Excel, do an effective search via the internet, intelligently consume web-based information, or use basic features of a library database?

ANSWER? The Net Generation really isn’t computer literate (sssshhhhhhh!).  They’re not computer literate in any meaningful sense of the phrase, at least.  This conversation addresses and deconstructs the notion of the inherently computer literate net generation learner; in short, it’s an attempt to undo over 10 years of brainwashing that has a great number of educators believing we have to change to adapt to “them.”  The educational implications for the reality of the ironically computer IL-literate “Net Generation” are discussed, and the presentation includes a report and discussion of research findings in which 350+ learners completed a one hour computer literacy assessment aligned to an internationally recognized standard for and definition of computer literacy.  80% of the students failed to achieve a passing score.  Seriously… 80%