At the beginning of my class this semester - college level Microcomputer Applications - I used Google Forms to deliver a survey and collect information about students: their life situation, computer skills, computer use experience and habits etc. Learner responses to questions provide at least some validation to the myth of the computer literate “digital native” discussed in this space previously.

How do my students rate their own computer literacy?

When self reporting their own computer literacy on a scale of 1 (Not at all) to 10 (Extremely), a full 70% of the class (N=29) rated themselves a 6 or higher with another 22% placing themselves in the middle of the scale. That makes a full 92% of the class that considers themselves moderately to extremely computer literate.  If you exclude the most extreme responses, 86% of my students reported between 5 and 8, inclusive.

However, from the same survey, less than 10% of the students indicated they use a database application (10%), presentation software (0%), or spreadsheet application (3%) more than “maybe once a week” each.  And, surprisingly, the numbers weren’t much higher for word processing applications; only 11% of the group suggested they use word processing software more than “maybe once a week.” (review summary results here)

Given that:

• Word Processing, Spreadsheet & Presentation applications are considered “core applications” by the IC3 definition of computer literacy.
• An “Introduction to Computers” curriculum - ostensibly to provide a foundation for computer literacy - typically teaches all four types of applications.
• and, those four types of applications form the core of the most commonly used office productivity suites.

How can a group of learners consider themselves to have better than average computer literacy skills when they rarely use these applications?  My answer . . .?  Either (a) our learners are not as computer literate as they (and many others) would like to think or (b) our institutional definitions of computer literacy are way off.  Granted, this only considers one component of the IC3 definition of computer literacy (with the others being basic hardware knowledge and use of the internet), but I tend to think it’s the former.  Your thoughts?

A forum post in one of my Ning networks highlighted this blog post by Rick Tanski, “BLC08 - Tainted by Digital Racism” which questions Marc Prensky’s choice of rhetoric when describing “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants.” I agree that a postmodern deconstruction of that characterization of technology users is easily justified and perhaps very necessary, but I believe the entire “digital native” rhetoric has created two other problems that are more specifically relevant to educators.

First, by establishing the term “digital native,” Prensky enabled the mythology of the inherently computer literate learner. Many, many educators have heard the term “digital native” and have translated that to mean that all Generation Y or Millenial learners are computer literate. Many younger learners absolutely know how to use certain technology tools or web applications: cell phones, text messaging, and MySpace or Facebook. However, that is the furthest thing from being “computer literate” - much less “information literate.” Knowing how to go to www.google.com and enter a search term is drastically different from being able to enter search terms that help you efficiently find what you need. Further, being a natural at Photoshop or Autocad or Excel or Facebook or text messaging on a phone keypad or any other specific applications does not constitute being computer literate or information literate. Being literate in those regards requires a much broader range of skills than those possessed by many “digital natives” I’ve observed.

Second, I believe Prensky’s work also spawned or contributed greatly to the misguided belief that younger learners learn differently than the learners before them - that learning styles have changed. My thoughts on this issue are posted here and fall into line with Rick’s comment: “By the way, teachers who struggle with new technologies are not new: did anyone else help out with the film projector, slide projector, opaque or ditto machines? I mean all the Web 2.0 items are projectors in themselves, right?” Even if our younger learners have grown up with technology all around them, that doesn’t mean they learn any differently than you or I; they just have new and different tools available to facilitate the process.

A quick added note on my previous post regarding Dr. Wesch’s “A Vision of Students Today.” The Chronicle picked up the story on the publication of Dr. Wesch’s video; however, they carried it under the headline, Kansas State U. Students Read Half of Class Material. The article suggests the video:

seems to indicate that higher education—-or perhaps just Kansas State University—-is failing to engage students.

I understood the sample was taken entirely from K-State, particularly given the details and description of the activity available on Dr. Wesch’s blog. I understood the purpose of the video was to highlight a prominent issue within higher education. I know the actual research activity was particularly engaging for the 200 students fortunate enough to be in Dr. Wesch’s class. I know, from recent experience, the undergraduate learning experience is in many instances exactly as Dr. Wesch’s course portrayed it. I clearly understand the communication technologies so-called millenials are using to interact with one another and that higher education should be taking advantage of those technologies in the classroom rather than barring them from it. As an educational technologist, the video provides a worthwhile starting point to trigger or further stoke a valuable conversation.

Any number of headlines could have been chosen to call attention to Dr. Wesch’s video. However, the headline chosen by The Chronicle, to me, seems at least uninformed and at most irresponsible or belligerent. Which is it? The Chronicle attempts to point out that Dr. Wesch’s sample is not necessarily representative of all higher education institutions; anyone taking the time to point that fact out should also be keenly aware that Dr. Wesch’s sample is also not necessarily representative of the entire Kansas State student body.

Dr. Michael Wesch (creator of The Machine is Using Us) has published a video focused on the relevance of digital culture to higher education; entitled A Vision of Students Today, the video was - as noted by Dr. Wesch’s blog Digital Ethnography - the result of a the following instructions:

… the basic idea is to create a 3 minute video highlighting the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. We already know some things from previous research (and if you know of any interesting statistics, please list them along with the source). Others we will need to find out by doing a class survey. Please add whatever you want to know or present.

The blog describes the process and results of the survey which are used throughout the video. Definitely worth a read, a viewing and healthy resyndication ;-)

I discovered it reading Dean’s blog; Dean noticed it via a tweet from Bud.