Here’s how it goes.  Whatever you call them - Gen Y or Z, Millennials, The Net Generation, digital natives - they learn/communicate/think radically differently from previous generations.  They have grown up with laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, hand-held games, global positioning systems, ipods, and DVD players which they use for blogging, social networking, creating and sharing media, gaming, downloading music and videos and instant messaging.  They use these technologies quickly, simultaneously, instinctively, and unconsciously.  

Read more here.

But how convincing is this line of argument?  Doesn’t it have a whiff of the salesman about it with all of those pithy one-liners?  Turns out I am not the only one who feels a bit sceptical.

Recent longitudinal research from University College London has concluded that all ages share some of the traits of the ‘Google generation’.  Its findings include the fact that young people rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not critically anyse the information they find.  Read more in the study’s briefing paper (PDF).  Need more evidence?  Check out the conference paper The Digital Learner: Myth or Reality, the blog Net Gen Nonsense, and this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In The Australian, Christopher Scanlon asks: “why is there such a divergence between claims about digital natives and the realities of the classroom?”

The answer is partly a matter of class, commercial interest and confusion.

It’s partly a matter of class because there are some students [from privileged backgrounds where computers are enmeshed into their daily lives from a young age] who perfectly fit the mould of digital natives …

The digital natives theory is also partly driven by commercial interest … Creating anxieties about the effectiveness of existing approaches to teaching and offering a solution - [e.g.] game-based learning aimed at digital natives …

Confusion also plays a part. It’s telling that most of the accounts of digital natives come not from natives themselves but from middle-aged people observing young adults using computers … Those writing about digital natives confuse the ability to navigate around ready-made online environments or download content from the net for a general ease with technology.

He concludes: “If we are to equip students to navigate a digital world, education ought to be based on assessing students’ individual strengths and weaknesses rather than making glib generalisations that mistake using Facebook for technological savvy.”

What do you think?

Filed under: Mobile learning, Students, Technologies, Virtual Learning by Agnes Bosanquet