The Digital Generation

Relevant Links (Please add your own or delete dead links)

• Growing Up Digital; Donald Tapscott's observations on the "Net Generation"
• Net Day Speak Up; students speak up on technology issues; surveyed every year

Some Questions to Consider (Are there more questions out there?)

• What kinds of personal technolgies might you expect N-Genners to bring to a classroom?
• Are teachers intimidated by students who know more about technology than they do?

What does it mean to grow up in a world in which digital technologies have always been present, and what does that suggest about learning styles and habits? What are the learning and work characteristics that we might expect to find among the offspring of the Baby Boomers, and how does that impact what we do as educators?

It has been said that technology is anything that was invented after you were born. To baby boomers, computers, the Internet, cell phones, and game consoles are technologies that they remember coming into being. To the children of baby boomers--"N-Genners," as Donald Tapscott calls them--these technologies have always been there in the same way that television and automobiles have always been there for their parents.

Some Characteristics of N-Genners

• Immediacy: N-Genners are conditioned to expect answers immediately in the context of their situation. They're not content to wait until Thursday to go to the library. This applies to communication as well. N-Genners prefer text messaging, chat rooms, and "IM'ing" to the much slower asynchronous method of communicating by e-mail. E-mail is so 20th century...

• Multitasking: Some studies such as this one suggest that multitasking is less efficient than sticking with one or two related tasks. Be that as it may, N-Genners are multitaskers from the word "go." They are used to chatting, listening to music, and doing their homework as an apparently seamless single activity. Instant messaging is an "always on" activity with many conversations often going on simultaneously.

• Always Connected: N-Genners can't imagine not being connected to each other (through cell phones, chat rooms, IM, social networking sites, online multiplayer games, etc.) or to the world at large via the World Wide Web. It's not uncommon to find a group of N-Genners in close physical proximity to each other actually text-messaging each other. What happens when these students enter a classroom?

• Open to Sharing: Many N-Genners share their lives openly in chat rooms and social networking sites. They do so with a frankness that sometimes shocks their parents. This may make them more vulnerable to on-line solicitations of various sorts. They also may "share" information about themselves that isn't really true, right down to their photographs.