The Myth of the Digital Native…

I recently read “Confronting the Myth of the Digital Native” in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to see someone write what I have been I have been thinking ever since the first book heralding the rise of a new innately tech savvy generation.  I wasn’t buying it for two reasons:  1.  The dichotomy of the digital native and the digital immigrant was too simplistic, and 2.  My personal observations of students and tech savvy adults did not align with this thesis.  After reading the aforementioned article, I decided to take a closer look at this idea and what I found was not only interesting, it restored my faith that doing real research will help us find better answers than spouting nonsense and jumping on bandwagons.  In the comment stream of the CE article, I was directed to a study in the British Journal of Educational Technology, entitled, “The Digital Natives’ Debate: a Critical Review of the Evidence.”  I am not going to lie, the words critical and review made my heart sing.  Following the breadcrumb trail from that literature review lead me to a whole bunch more articles in which researchers did actual experiments about how students actually use technology.  Surprise, surprise, though they are very good at swiping screens and clicking on things, they are unable to use technology (without prior instruction) for a host of educationally related tasks, such as good searching, evaluating, even spreadsheets and word processing.  Before you blitz me, I know this is an oversimplification.  I am working through the studies right now to prepare a presentation that will line up my assertions with the evidence—yes folks, evidence, not proclamations based on anecdotes, such as this example (notice the lack of footnotes or references to scholarly work)—to back them up.  I have the power of many university researchers and replicated experiments, and hard data behind me. 

But wait, there’s more.  As I went further down the rabbit hole, I found “Do Learners Really Know Best?  Urban Legends in Education.” (Kirschner and Merrienboer), which has a whole section about information literacy, debunking the myth that students don’t need to learn things they can look up.   From the article (emphasis his):

 Prior knowledge largely determines how we find, select, and process (i. e. evaluate) information…in most cases students’ prior knowledge of the subject matter is minimal…low prior knowledge negatively influences the search process. Learners neither are [sic] skilled in information problem solving (i. e. they are not really information literate) nor do they have the expertise needed to determine what they do not know and what they, therefore, need to learn.

There is a lot in these studies to help librarians find ways to be of value.  The proof that students need us is in the results and conclusions.  The first step is to recognize that students are not born knowing how to use technology any more than they are born knowing how to walk.  They have to learn it, and we have to teach it to them. 
Two takeaways for today:

1.  Technology plays a different role for students at home and at school (Bennett 781). If we want students to embrace and fully use technology to its highest potential as a learning tool, we have to show them how.  Regardless of how good they are at playing games on their phones.
2. Information Literacy is not acquired by osmosis.  Sitting a class full of students in front of computers and telling them to find it on their own, is not an effective teaching strategy (Kirschner 176-177).  If we want students to use internet effectively, it requires instruction—often direct instruction.  (See “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work:  an Analysis if the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Eperiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching” by Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark—don’t let the title scare you.  They are not against these methods, they are for executing them more effectively.)

Because there is so much to unpack, this post will be the first in a series about the Myth of the Digital Native.  I hope you’ll join me.

Couldn't resist  the cute baby picture from www.pouted.com.  It is licensed for reuse.