These Digital Natives are Struggling

 So, in the world of digital devices....I am apparently the immigrant, and they are the natives. All the experts say that those younger generations are digital natives.  

Wait, my students?  the ones I teach?  The ones who don’t know that they should probably name a new document, don’t know how to copy a document, can’t find the document, can’t make a document… OK, that sounds a little bitter. I guess I should back up to where this all comes from!

Our current unit is about argument. We are arguing whether technology is helpful or harmful in the world today. That’s the ending question, the essential one, that they will answer in the form of an argument essay. So, they are collecting evidence, they are building a personal website to reflect their thoughts, log personal use of technology, find evidence, etc., etc. They love building a website, they adore the topic, but there is still the school side of things to work on.  But it seems that instead of spending time on the writing, an inordinate amount of time is spent working on technology 'how-tos'.

This week, in a special help session I do for struggling kids, we read an article about technology together. The article was all about digital natives. As I read it, I had to keep my thoughts at bay. Why? Well, on Martin Luther King day (just one small example), I spent 90 minutes helping one of these so-called digital natives find his files in his drive, name documents, move files, share work, and so on and so forth. 

90 minutes.  

Well spent because he's caught up now, but WOW, 90 minutes!  

Now, let's put this in perspective. This is our second semester of digital learning. Finding out a student didn’t know how to do these things was a little scary. Now granted, from the commentary in the background, clearly, his mother has been taking care of assignments beforehand, so this was 90 minutes showing him how he COULD work independently, how he was able to do the work! Regardless, clearly no signs of a 'native' here.  But that’s just one kid, so how about the others?

Here's the bottom line,  My students know how to play with technology, and when are motivated, they can figure things out adeptly.  But if the interest, engagement, purpose is not there, then the lack of basic skills shows through.

So, what's the lesson here?  First, don't expect that the students know how to use technology in the academic arean.  Second, if you want them to figure out the ways to make their digital work shine, they need to be interested - engaged - and have a reason to want to figure out the skills, have the desire to put the time and effort in to learn a new digital skill.  And I have to say, our technology unit is making waves with them - they are loving building the website, motivated to share properly because they want me to see it, focused on creating professional hyperlinks so that their work, "Looks cool!" and on it goes.

It's not a huge goal, but one thing that I am determined to achieve this year is for all my virtual students to really take full advantage of the situation and know how to use simple Google skills WELL by the end of this strange and interesting year!