’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Is there a net generation coming to university ? Conference or Workshop Item

This paper reports the first phase of an ESRC funded research project to investigate first year students’ use of technology in relation to the idea of young people born after 1983 forming a distinct age cohort described variously as the Net generation or Digital Natives. The research took place in five English universities in the spring of 2008. The research found a far more complex picture than that suggested by the rhetoric with student use of new technologies varying between different universities and courses. Some of the more discussed new technologies such as blogs, wikis and virtual worlds were shown to be less used by students than might have been expected. The Net generation appears if anything to be a collection of minorities with a small number of technophobic students and larger numbers of others making use of new technologies but in ways that did not fully correspond with many of the expectations built into the Net generation and Digital Natives theses. Introduction The Net Generation is one of several terms used to identify a distinct generational group in ways that have relevance for teaching and learning. This new generation is identified with young people born after 1983. At the time of writing this makes the oldest Net generation members 26. Some recent reports suggest that there is a further generational shift following the Net generation beginning in the year 1993 (JISC-Ciber 2008). For our purposes we accept this ten year period between 1983 and 1993 as the boundaries of our research. It is claimed that the Net generation prefer active to passive learning, have distinct information searching patterns and a low tolerance for delays. From these characteristics there are derived particular issues that might affect teaching and learning, for example the kinds of attention spans that are exhibited by students such as working in ‘bursts’. This new generation has been entering UK higher education since 2001 and on their arrival they encounter an increasingly extensive use of e-learning. Currently it is still not clear what the characteristics of this emerging student body are. Nor is it clear what the most important influences might be on student engagement with networked and digital technologies during their studies. The term Net generation is most commonly associated with the work of Tapscott (1998 and 2008) and he argues that these young people are different to previous cohorts because of their experience of networked and digital technologies. He writes, for example, that: Today’s youth are different from any generation before them. They are exposed to digital technology in virtually all facets of their day-to-day existence, and it is not difficult to see that this is having a profound impact on their personalities, including their attitudes and approach to learning. Tapscott (1998 a) We are interested in how these changes might affect learning and Tapscott suggests that the changes in technology have some ‘inevitable’ consequences for learning. Tapscott argues that that the ultimate interactive environment is the internet itself and that education will need to move from a teacher-centered approach to learning to learner centered approaches. “But as we make this inevitable transition we may best turn to the generation raised on and immersed in new technologies. ” (Tapscott 1999 p11). Another key source for arguments about the Net generation comes from articles written by Prensky using the term Digital Natives (Prensky 2001 and 2001a). In a similar way to Tapscott he argues that digital natives are part of a step change in attitudes and styles: . not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” — an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. (Prensky 2001 p 1) Presnky’s comments were made about the entire generation in schools and colleges and they are not limited to students in universities. Prensky suggests the new generation thinks differently and he goes on to make the claim that the brains of the new generation are different to previous generations (Prensky 2001a). A similar argument has recently been advanced, without