I’m old enough to be the parent of some of my students (the first-years, anyway). If you want some idea of what that means in the history of computing, my first introduction to a computer came in the sixth grade; we had a Commodore PET in our classroom. At home, my brother and I begged for the Sears knockoff of the Atari system one Christmas. The first computer we had in our home was the Commodore 64.
When I started trying to integrate technology into my courses, I made two assumptions:
- I have no formal training in the use of computer technology. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned because it was something I needed or wanted to know, and I was willing to experiment as needed to figure it out. Due to my lack of training, I really don’t know much.
- My students have had much more exposure to computers than I had growing up.
Based on these two assumptions, I made a third:
- Students have good technical skills, and are comfortable enough with computers to readily adapt to anything I might do technologically in the classroom, or ask them to do outside of class.
This is an incorrect assumption. At least, it’s an assumption that isn’t accurate for all students.
What my experience has taught me is that, while students have had significant exposure to computers (and to other tools such as cell phones and iPods), their use of technology has been fairly limited. Students are generally quite good at wordprocessing, using email, texting, communicating via IM, and making use of MySpace or Facebook.
Beyond that, however, their skills are limited. Google Documents is something new (though their familiarity with wordprocessing helps them adapt to it quickly), blogs are unfamiliar, and Zotero is beyond anything most of them have encountered before (though most of them are quite impressed with its ability to create bibliographies).
Where I’ve erred as a teacher is in thinking that it’s sufficient to walk students through the use of these tools during a classroom session. (Actually, the first time I tried to use some of these tools, I didn’t even think to do that–I just pointed them toward the relevant website and asked them to start working with it. Big mistake.)
The problem was that I not only mistakenly assumed that students were already reasonably tech-savvy; I also made the mistake of thinking that poking around a site’s instruction pages and/or support forums (if they ran into trouble) would be a natural thing for them to do. It isn’t.
So, I’ve made some progress in trying to get students to use appropriate technology for class: I’ve gone from just telling them about good tools and pointing them to appropriate websites to taking class time to walk them through the use of these tools and getting them set up with accounts (though using class time this way tends to frustrate students who are tech-savvy or who simply aren’t interested).
My next step is to take a page out of George’s playbook: using ScreenSteps or a similar tool to create tutorials for my students (like this one on using Jiffle). My hope is that having the online tutorial to refer back to will help students to retain and master the skills we introduce in class.
What experiences have you had trying to integrate technology into your courses? Or, if you’re a student, what’s been your experience of your instructors’ use of technology? Let’s hear from you in the comments!
The image in this post comes from Flickr user Unhindered by Talent and carries a Creative Commons license.
7 Comments
I think the points I’d emphasize in your post here are 1) “Students are generally quite good at wordprocessing, using email, texting, communicating via IM, and making use of MySpace or Facebook” and 2) “Where I’ve erred as a teacher is in thinking that it’s sufficient to walk students through the use of these tools during a classroom session” happen because many students lack the vision to see the connections between tools and actions and assignments, etc, and/or lack the ability to ask a good question that will help them make connections. That’s not really their fault if they haven’t been taught to question things or make connections–here I’m thinking of students coming out of high school who have been taught to take standardized tests vs having been taught critical thinking/reading/etc skills. Yes, I know I’m speaking in generalizations. But those generalizations lead me to assume no technical skills on the part of my students. Technical aptitude, yes (a little), but not skills. Then I make sure I always play these teacherly roles WRT technology.
Good post, Amy!
I just spoke to a group of graduate students this morning about, among other things, this very same topic. I emphasized two main points. First, an instructor really does need to plan extra time when introducing an assignment that uses a particular technology. Screencasts can really help with this. Second, you should absolutely have an example of a completed assignment that they can look at so they have a sense of your expectations. They have a general sense of what a paper should look like. They are much less sure about a wiki page, a podcast episode, or a GIS map.
I teach and I work in educational technology, but some of my most interesting experiences with technology in the classroom have been from the student side.
I had a prof once who mistakenly assumed that if she offered technology in the classroom, we’d use it. She announced at the beginning of the semester, “We have a class discussion board, I want you to use it.” She had no idea how to use it herself, never explained how we should use it and never really logged on herself. She thought we were using it all along to have discussions about the course, when in reality, we stopped using it after about the second class. What I learned from this, and what I pass on to profs when I do ed tech training, is that students will follow your lead when it comes to technology. If you don’t log on at all and don’t specify how to use it, they won’t use it.
The other thing I find kind of interesting is that many profs have asked me where they can buy a “big manual” to read about whatever software I’m teaching them, and they look at me as if I had three heads when I tell them that manuals are outdated when you buy them. I think the best way to learn about software is to play with it first. If you come across problems, put your error message or describe your problem in Google.
And if you reach the point where you need to call your university’s tech support, please be excruciatingly specific in your request. Don’t tell them, “My email’s not working, what do I do?” Instead, spell out the exact steps you’re taking and the exact error messages you’re getting. It’s the only way tech support will be able to solve your problem!
I was an intentional late adopter of our on-line course management system… mostly because I don’t want to have to teach students how to use it for basic stuff.
I would argue that you can’t even take their word-processing skills for granted. We’ve all experienced the problems that come from spell-checker abuse, no? Plus if you then require other things that are a bit less obvious, such as using footnotes, numbering the pages, or saving in a format that’s different than the default (.doc, rather than .docx, for example)… Granted, most of my students are not coming from a place of privilege, but they also include older adults who work with computers at their work – and both categories tend to be flummoxed by these things when they first encounter them.
I’ve been using Google Docs in a class where students gather data and then do some analysis and coding on each other’s data. I’d anticipated some resistance to using the technology, but after some initial confusion about their account names there has actually been very little trouble, much to my pleasant surprise.
In constrast, I use some specialized but freely available software in a different class. In class I walked students through the process of using the software to do the analysis, but where many of them got tripped up was in downloading and installing the software. And if they got it installed, they then couldn’t find the assignment file that they had downloaded — they didn’t know where the default download location was. And if they could find the downloaded file, they didn’t know how to get it unzipped to get access to the individual files. That’s the kind of thing that’s hard to give instructions in class for, because how can I anticipate where their computer’s default download directory is?
There are several approaches to getting the less tech-savvy students up to speed without wasting everyone’s patience:
Offer a study session for the express purpose of walking everyone through an account set-up, rather than using class time.
If time outside of class is not available, provide the next part of the assignment to the students who demonstrate they don’t need the extra help, so they can move forward while everyone else catches up.
Make the TAs do the handholding during their session.
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