Top Ten Things Learned from K-12 Students About Educational Technology – But Were Afraid to Ask
Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow delivered a talk at The Future of Education web site on the findings of Speak Up, an annual national research project sponsored by her organization. Titled Top Ten Things We Learned from K-12 Students About Educational Technology in 2008, the report is a real eye-opener and should be of great interest not only to high school and college instructors but also corporate, government and military trainers who need to prepare for the educational tsunami that is forming. A table of findings from the survey are presented below. Many of the issues reported in the summary are already being seen in adult training venues. Others, no doubt, are just over the horizon and will certainly become standard topics of sundry research reports, conference talks, and blogs like this in the near future.
| Item | Clarification |
| Digital Divide is Alive & Well | The digital divide between students and adults (including teachers and parents) continues to widen – despite all of the investments and professional development, our students are still powering down to go to school and powering up after school to re-enter the digital world. Other digital divides exist as well between segments of the student population including gender, technology skill self-assessment and age. |
| Spectrum of Digital Native-ness | Don’t assume all digital natives are the same. The Speak Up data reveals that there is a spectrum of “digital native-ness” today with younger and older students exhibiting increasingly divergent tech behaviors as well as very different attitudinal views on technology within learning. Case in point – a 5th grader is almost 5X more likely to participate regularly in a virtual world than an 11th grader. |
| Explosion of Access to Mobile Devices |
Today’s K-12 students are carrying “multiple computers in their pockets and backpacks” everyday. Highlights from the data include: almost 40% of K-2 students have their own cell phone, about half of students in Gr 3-5 have their own MP3 player and almost 24% of middle and high school students are carrying around a smartphone or PDA. |
| New Obstacles to Tech Use @ School | Technology use at school is still a major frustration/disappointment factor for the overwhelming majority of students. #1 obstacle to effective tech use (for the 5th year in a row) is school filters and firewalls – of course. But the real surprise was this year’s #2 obstacle – teachers that limit our technology use. The students told us in focus groups that they had better access to technology before their teachers received training on technology use! |
| Let Me Use My Own Devices! | So, what advice do students have for their schools about improving technology access at school? Across the board, the students say “let me use my own devices at school!” Students want to be able to use their own laptops, cell phones, MP3 players and Smartphones for a variety of applications within instruction. They, of course, want access to the network as well – from anywhere on campus and from home, too. |
| Online Learning –Defying Conventional Wisdom |
One-quarter of all high school students have already had experience with an online class – and that experience most likely was self-initiated by the student, not the school or the teacher. Adults say that students want to take an online class for scheduling or convenience reasons or to get college credit. However, we find that the students have different motivating reasons. Today’s middle school students tell us that the #1 reason they would like to take an online class is as a supplement to their traditional class, not in place of that class. They want additional help in a subject where they are struggling. What is that subject? Math – the new frontier for online learning. |
| 21st Century Skills & Gaming | Students say that the incorporation of gaming technologies within instruction will help them better develop skills in critical thinking, decision-making, teamwork and creativity. How do they know that? From their own “learning” experiences with all kinds of digital and online games outside of school. Over 2/3 of all K-12 students are regularly interacting with some kind of electronic games, averaging 8-10 hours a week in game play. The devices vary greatly by user profile however. Girls are most likely to enjoy computer based games; younger students thrive in a cell phone game environment. Gaming is not just for high school boys anymore! |
| Technology & Student Social Activism |
While the majority of social network fans are using their MySpace or Facebook sites for standard communications (email, IM) 10% of students in grades 6-8 told us that they have created a special interest group on their personal website about an issue that they were interested in, 15% have participated in an online poll about world issues and 17% regularly use the Internet to research local or world problems. Activism and technology goes hand in hand even in middle school today. |
| Wake Up Call for Our Nation’s Schools |
The greatest divide amongst students today in terms of their behaviors and attitudes about technology use, in school and out of school, is reflected in their own self-assessment of their tech skills. The students that perceive themselves as technology advanced compared to their peers (average tech users and beginners) have dramatically different views on technology across the board. This self-assessment divide follows through when we polled students about their own school’s ability to prepare them for the jobs and careers of the 21st century. While less than half of the students in grades 6-12 said that their school was doing a good job preparing them for the future, only 23% of the technology advanced students held that same view. This should be a wake up call to all educators – our most technology advanced students are giving our schools a failing grade! |
| The New Face of Personalized Learning – the Free Agent Learner |
The #1 trend we saw in 2008 from our Speak Up data analysis work and our focus group discussions with students all across the country is the emergence of the “Free Agent Learner.” This Free Agent Learner is un-tethered to traditional school institutions, is engrossed in developing their own content for learning, regularly creates new communities for knowledge exchanges and social interaction, and is an expert in data aggregation to drive experiential learning. The Free Agent Learner believes that he or she must be responsible for their own learning destiny since their school is not meeting their needs, and is empowered by a wide variety of emerging technologies to do so. The Free Agent Learner is as we write and speak defining the new face of education for the next generation and still, with few exceptions, our schools do not even realize this new style of learner exists – at least not yet. Welcome to 2009! |
A Word file of the top ten findings can be downloaded here.
A PowerPoint file of Julie Evans’ talk at the Future of Education web site can be gotten here.
An audio recording of Ms. Evans’ talk can be found here.
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