Student Perspectives in Perspective

I, like Robert Kvavik, expected to see and hear that students wanted a lot more technology used in the classrooms. Like Kvavik, I also assumed that students would come into the classrooms already possessing much of the information knowledge they needed. Although his 2004 study is a little outdated now, it goes to show that good old fashioned values can still prevail in the classroom. These values were brought up in the study done by Hartman, Moskal and Dziuban. Their study revealed that what students wanted most from their instructors were respect, concern, fairness and effective communication. These “Excellent Teaching” values were refreshing to see.

Personally, I feel I fit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of the desires and habits of Net Geners and Gen X’ers. My major (education) does dictate that I learn new and exciting ways to reach and teach students, so I have had to learn many web tools and applications in the past few years that I would not have necessarily learned. I speak the same language, just with a lesser degree of fluency. I am one who still enjoys the face-to-face contact instead of the constant text and instant messages that overshadow so many conversations. I don’t dare move my laptop around the house for fear of damaging it. I still believe in the “quiet” space in the house to study. (I get frustrated if anyone around me even coughs if I’m in the middle of completing an urgent assignment.)

When I first began to notice the overwhelming abundance of digital devices, I considered them a nuisance. Cell phones are constantly going off and people are literally glued to their electronic devices, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. I was very surprised to see the survey results of the Baby Boomers on the satisfaction surveys for learning engagement and interaction. It is good to see that this new technology we have is going to good use by increasing our knowledge.

Students want to be engaged in the form of active learning and discovery. I only wish those concepts had been around when I was a young student. I cherish interacting with my fellow students in class and realize that learning is life-long and doesn’t just stop because we get older. If I get too old to drive to class, I have the capability of logging online to take a course. the part of the “language” I don’t understand with this new generation of digital natives, is that of always being interconnected and distracted by so many things around at once. I really don’t see how a student can study effectively while listening to music and texting friends all at the same time. Are they really learning? Also, Net Generation has no concept of the falsehoods that await them in cyber-space. They take mostly everything they read at face value.

It was good to learn from Hartman, Moskal and Dziuban that “Although it may be desirable…it is not necessary that institutions rush to become providers of instant messaging, blogs …or any of the array of students' favorite technologies. The real opportunity lies in observing and talking to today's students to learn more about how they conceptualize and use these new tools.” As well, we shouldn’t be too concerned to learn all of the new technology exactly as it is today because times will change again. As the authors note, “…adaptation for the present generation may not be adequate for the next.”