Whats in a Name Digital Natives, Millennials, Net Generation

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Whats in a Name? Digital Natives, Millennials,
Net Generation

• Marilyn Puchalski
• Engagement Institute
• Spring 2007

2
About Whom Are We Speaking?

• Born between 1982 and 2002
• Generation Y
• Digital Natives (Marc Prensky)
• Net Generation
• Millennials (William Strauss Neil Howe)

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Marc Prenskys Take

• Digital Natives
• Technologically fluent
• Digital Immigrants
• TSL technology as a second language
• Speak with a digital accent
• Prensky
• uses these terms to describe the disconnect
  between todays learners and todays
  teachers/parents

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Digital Natives

• Rapid access to information from multiple sources
• Multi-tasking
• Multi-media over text
• Random access to information
• Networked interactions with multiple people
• Just-in-time learning
• Immediate rewards
• Relevant, useful, fun learning

5
Digital Immigrants

• Controlled information access, limited sources
• Doing one thing at a time
• Text
• Sequential information processing
• Independent work
• Deferred rewards
• Serious learners

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How do Natives use technology?

• Communication (cell/email/IM)
• Social Life (MySpace/IM)
• Research
• Productivity Applications
• Organizing life (calendars/PDAs)
• Shopping

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Quiz

• Do you check email at least 3X a day?
• Do you Google for information at least 5X a day?
• Do you use your mobile phone for more than one
  thing?
• Have you turned over remembering to a technology
  device?
• Do you shop online more than the mall?
• Do you have a wireless network at home?
• Do you text instead of calling?
• Do you IM?

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Todays Learners
are about access and interaction anytime,
anyplace.
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Informal Learning Important

• Learning ecology
• Mobility make this possible
• Social networking
• Collaboration

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What do Natives Expect?

• Mobility (wireless, power)
• Self help
• Online answers
• FAQs
• Google
• 24/7 services (tutorials, library, payments, tech
  support)
• Communicate online
• Use technology for learning (LMS,PPT, etc.)

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What do Natives like?

• Creativity give them opportunities
• Multimedia formats
• Varied class activities (short segments)
• Engagement with materials
• Engagement with the world
• Self help
• Immediacy
• Collaboration

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What do Natives need?

• Interaction with real people F2F
• Peers
• Faculty low stakes, one-on-one conversations
• Instruction about IL
• Warnings about MySpace, etc.
• Crash course in application software

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The Millennial GenerationBlessing or Curse in
the Classroom

Terri M. Manning, EdD
Director, Center for Applied
Research Central
Piedmont Community College
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The Millennial Childhood

• The most monumental financial boom in history.
• Steady income growth through the 1990s.
• Still great disparity between races.
• Saw their parents lose all their stocks and
  mutual funds (college funds) during the early
  2000s.

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Demographic Trends

• Smaller families Only
  children will comprise
  about 10 of the
  population.
• More parental education 1 in 4 has at least one
  parent with a college degree.
• Kids born in the late 90s are the first in
  American history whose mothers are better
  educated than their fathers by a small margin.

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Major Influencing Factors

• Their parents
• The self-esteem movement
• The customer service movement
• Gaming and technology
• Casual communication

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Parenting Millennials

• This generation is being parented by
  well-educated, over-involved adults who
  participate in deliberate
  parenting. They have
  outcomes in mind.
• Boomers were the first
  generation to be thrown
  out in to an unsafe world
  as adolescents.
• The 60s and 70s were very scary and many of us
  felt unprepared for it.
• We were naïve and didnt have enough tools in our
  tool box to deal with it.

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Baby Boomers as Parents

• Boomers rebelled against the parenting practices
  of their parents.
• Strict discipline was the order
  of the day for boomers.
• They made conscious decisions
  not to say because I told you
  so or because Im the
  parent and youre the
  child.
• Boomers became more
  friendly with their children.
  They wanted to have open lines of communication
  and a relationship with them.

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Baby Boomers as Parents

• They explained things to their children,
  (actions, consequences, options, etc.) they
  wanted them to learn to make informed decisions.
• They allowed their children to have input into
  family decisions, educational options and
  discipline issues.
• We told them just because it is on
  television doesnt mean its
  true or you cant
  believe everything
  you read.
• We wanted them to question
  authority.
  

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The Result

• Millennials have become a
  master set of negotiators who
  are capable of rational
  thought and decision-making
  skills at young ages.
• They will negotiate with anyone including their
  parents, teachers and school administrators.
• Some call this arguing.

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Helicopter Parents

• Helicopter Parent (n) A
  parent who hovers over his
  or her children.
• Or Snowplow parent Parents who clear the way for
  their children
• these (echo) boomers are confident,
  achievement-oriented and used to hovering
  "helicopter" parents keeping tabs on their every
  move. (Anthony DeBarros, "New baby boom swamps
  colleges," USA Today, January 2, 2003)

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Baby Boomer Parents have been their Biggest
Cheerleaders

• Millennials expect and need praise.
• Will mistake silence for disapproval.
• Millennials expect feedback.

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Focus on Self-esteem

• This generation was the center
  of the self-esteem movement.
• 9,068 books were written about
  self-esteem and children during
  the 80s and 90s (there were 485 in the 70s).

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Focus on Self-esteem

• The state of California spent millions studying
  the construct and published a document entitled
  Toward a State of Self-esteem.
• Yet they cant escape the angst of adolescence
  they still feel disconnected, question their
  existence, purpose and the meaning of life. They
  want to feel valued and cared about.

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Focus on Customer Service

• Expect access (24/7)
• Expect things to work like
  they are supposed to
• If they dont that is your
  problem
• They want what they have paid for
• Everything comes with a toll-free number or web
  address
• Want a system restore
  option in classes

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Add the Impact of Gaming

• Gaming has impacted children
• The game endings changed based
  on the decisions children made
  (Role Playing Games)
  impacting locus of control.
• Involves a complex set of decision-
  making skills.
• Teaches them to take multiple
  pieces of data and make
  decisions quickly.
• Learning more closely resembles Nintendo, a trial
  and error approach to solving problems.

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We navigated our way through..
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They navigated their way through..
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Technology

• This generation has been plugged in since they
  were babies.
• They grew up with educational software and
  computer games.
• They think technology should be free.
• They want and expect
  services 24/7.
• They do not live in an
  85 world.
• They function in an
  international world.

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Millennials Want to Learn

• With technology
• With each other
• Online
• In their time
• In their place
• Doing things that matter (most important)

Source Achievement and the 21st Century Learner.
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By age 21..

• It is estimated that the
  average child will have
• Spent 10,000 hours playing video games
• Sent 200,000 emails
• Spent 20,000 hours watching TV
• Spent 10,000 hours on their cell phone
• Spent under 5,000 hours reading
• But these are issues of income. Will a child who
  grows up in a low income household have these
  same experiences?

Source Educause
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What About 1st Generation Students?

• Not all students will be proficient
  first-generation and students from working class
  families may have less experience.
• Their experience with technology has been in
  arcades and minimally in school (poorer
  districts.)
• They have not had the exposure to educational
  uses of technology.

33
What About 1st Generation Students?

• We need another placement test remedial
  keyboarding and technology.
• Huge digital divide between the haves and the
  have nots based on income levels (class).
• Digital divide is appearing in pre-K.

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The Information Age Mindset

• Students have never known life without the
  computer. It is an assumed part of life.
• The Internet is a source of research,
  interactivity, and socializing (they prefer it
  over TV).
• Doing is more important than knowing.
• There is zero tolerance for delays.
• The infrastructure and the
  lecture tradition of colleges
  may not meet the expectations
  of students raised on the Internet and
  interactive games.

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Cell Phone Technology

• They all have cell phones and expect
  to be in contact 24/7.
• Not a phone a lifestyle management tool
• Staying connected is essential.
• Communication is a safety issue for
  parents.
• Communication has become casual
  for students (IM, email and
  cell phones.
• How has this changed how they
  interact with faculty?

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Issues for Schools, Colleges and Universities in
an Information Age

• Plagiarism (consumer/creator blurring)
• Cheating (must define it)
• Cell Phone Policies
• Typing vs. Handwriting
• Use of paper mills

From The Information Age Mindset Changes in
Students and Implications for Higher Education.
By Jason L. Frand. Educause. Sep/Oct 2000.
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Attitudes ..
Source Educause
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2004 Research Study

• Central Piedmont Community Colleges Center for
  Applied Research was contracted to do this study
  by the Workforce Development Board.
• Data collected JanuaryMarch 2004 from the
  University of NC at Charlotte, Central Piedmont
  Community College and Johnson C. Smith University.

Funded By
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Some Major Themes From the Study

• They like teachers who pay attention to their
  needs, schedules and interests.
• They like working in teams but are not given a
  lot of opportunity to do so.
• Their job expectations immediately out of college
  are not as high as previous generations (65
  expect to earn 40K or less).
• They want to do meaningful work (more important
  than money)

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Some Major Themes

• They expect to have 46 jobs in their lifetime.
• They expect to someday acquire the lifestyle they
  grew up with.
• They expect to have a 2-income family.
• Security and time for family are the two most
  important quality of life variables.
• Think their parents did a great job and dont
  think their generation can improve family life
  over how their parents raised them.

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How They Will Push Us

• More independence in the workforce
• Consumer-based fairness
• Better technology
• Enhanced professional development
• Get rid of thats the way weve always done it
• Have more life balance
• Re-establish priorities

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So How Do We Work With Them?

• Because they have grown up in a different world,
  never assume that they know certain things like
• You dont want to talk to their mother when they
  are having problems.
• You dont get points for showing up or an A for
  effort.
• The definition of plagiarism and cheating.

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So How Do We Work With Them?

• Its not appropriate to call the professor at
  home after 9pm.
• They cant use IM language in papers.
• Its not okay to email the professor 10 times a
  day.
• That when they email you at 3am, youre not
  sitting on the other end waiting to respond to
  them.
• The business office (and most others) close at
  5pm.

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What Should Institutions Do?

• Develop policies and practices around appropriate
  communication (by department).
• Give them access to as much as is philosophically
  possible.
• Draw a line on negotiations.
• Stop existing in an 8-5 world.
• Look into what is known about learning.
• Try to actively engage them.
• Create alterative ways for the low-tech students
  to come up to speed.

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What does this mean for engagement?How are we
defining engagement?
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Pascarella and Terenzini

• Characteristics of learning and development (6
  Touchstones)
• Encounter challenging ideas/people
• Engage those challenges
• Requires supportive environment
• Involves real-world activities
• Is a social activity
• Is not limited by time or space

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Rules of Engagement

• Capture their attention
• Convince them to care (WIIFM)
• Motivate them to own their learning
• Provide them with choices
• Connect them to each other and to you
• Induce them to participate
• Make it an experience to remember

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BCCC and Engagement

• What are we doing well?
• What do we need to improve?
• What do we need to move forward?

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Resources

• Marc Prensky
• http//www.marcprensky.com/writing/
• Millennials Rising http//www.williamstrauss.com/
• Educause Learning Initiative
• http//www.educause.edu/eli
• ECAR Key Findings
• http//www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?IDE
  KF0607