Session 2: The Google Generation

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This session looked at generational variations in the usage of Web 2.0 tools, and young people’s expectations of ICT provision at university. The ensuing debate examined whether ICT/Web 2.0 tool usage by universities should be student-led, and discussed whether or not the changing skillset applicable to ‘information literacy’ has affected quality of student work.

Malcolm Batchelor, JISC - Great Expectations

MB: This time last year, we were quite interested to see if there was a mismatch between what students coming into HE understood as their expectations and what they got. We commissioned Ipsos-Mori to survey some students expecting to go into university. We had 501 respondents, and got quantitative and qualitative data, and drilled down into the data we got.

What we found was that there was a difficulty in articulating their expectations. All sorts of things came into play - everything was going to be bigger at university. What it does show is that we shouldn’t overegg the pudding in some respects. Don’t overestimate what they think they actually know about university. They don’t see ICT as improving learning. There are other things on their agenda.

We focused on “digital native” - we went with the students who were really tech-savvy. It’s interesting - they are generally speaking immersed in technology as we’d expect. Internet access is the norm, but they do consider what ICT access is available to them when they apply to university, though it’s not a high priority. We need to be clearer about the role of ICT in teaching and learning. We still can’t assume they have an inherent expectation.

Last year, a considerable number used Web 2.0 tools and social networking - only 5% said they never did. 21% are

involved with social communities - we weren’t sure what that meant at the time, but we’ll look at it again later.

One girl called Second Life “sad”. They were cautious about sharing their work online and publishing it for peer review, so that’s worth bearing in mind. Some of them did expect unlimited access to everything all the time - an interesting view. They were challenged quite a lot on that. What it did highlight was the notion of fees. Students stated, “We’re paying for it - it should all be there”, particularly on the internet access side of it. We need to know how social networking tools relate to learning if they are to be used. Students aren’t dumb - they’ll smell a rat. They know if it’s being used for real purposes or if it doesn’t have a real context. I think it’s fair to say that it’s the visible, tangible benefits that spring to mind for students. Anything over the horizon is jam tomorrow, not jam today. Face-to-face interaction is really important. They’re sceptical about the use of technology in some respects.

So that’s last year. What happens now? We wanted to expand our understanding of what we thought these students had expected and experienced. So we did a very complicated set of analyses and methodology - two types of survey. We went back to the original cohort - the tech-literate ones, who could articulate their experiences - and then we felt we should add to this, and qualify whether this experience was just for the tech-savvy, or for everyone. We asked Mori to go and get more students and bring the numbers up to 999 first-year students. I’ll just say now - we did this as an online discussion group. We had full transcripts at our hands straight away. We could seed into the discussion groups information for people who were moderating it. We found lots of things like students having seven or eight windows open at a time on their machines.

We might expect that the tech-literate had much stronger views about what was going on. However, the findings might suggest that if there were any issues, they’d be more acute for the rest of the student population.

Back to the original survey, there was a general uncertainty about ICT. There’s no doubt that it’s becoming clearer. Around half thought their experience was better than expected. If you look at the bigger role, the expectations of amount of ICT used to support studies are met - things like WebCT and VLE. The roles of wikis and blogs are not quite clear. They can use their own equipment, but there are issues among the lower socio-economic groups. Higher socio-economic groups bring their own stuff, others don’t. 85% are satisfied with the internet access they get at their institution. They understand that it’s important to have boundaries on downloading and so on, and 82% are satisfied that ICT support is good in their institution. Hardware and software support queries, round about two-thirds are satisfied with that.

However, what is interesting if you reverse that. 25% said the ICT support and provision was poor or average. Their perception of that will colour if they can realise the benefits of ICT in teaching and learning. 79% of students access online materials once a week, and 97% of those find it useful to their studies. Generally speaking, students understand technology is relevant to them. Institutions need to make it clearer.

The big issue with social networking is that students are not comfortable with using things like Facebook as a formal part of the course, despite being familiar with it. The use of social networking is high and has risen, and it’s most effective when it’s student-driven, and not driven by the lecturer. 54% use wikis or blogs, but only 28% have their own. The issue is, is this a known technology, and whose responsibility is it?

If you look at the whole cohort, they don’t think it’s a good idea for tutors to use social networking sites as a teaching method. There’s a recognition that there are boundaries, and that’s something to bear in mind. It’s not about the use of applications and the technology, it’s about what it does for their learning. It’s not a skills-based thing, it’s about the way they think. Some technologies will be harder to introduce into teaching than others, but what does that mean in practice? Remember there are some students who don’t use social networking at all. Students need to understand the information in front of them, not just churn it around and hope they’ll come up with the right answer.

Q1: What was the sample?
MB: Students about to go to university.
Q1: What age range?
MB: 17-18 year olds. It’s the same group that has been revisited one year on. School leavers.

Q2: You spoke about ICT support. Were you talking about institutional support or where they might get that type of support?
MB: It was part of the expectations.

Q3: What evidence did you have that they were really tech-savvy? Men are much more confident about using technology, when in fact their competence levels are equivalent.
MB: We did some screening in the focus groups last year. The people who got the groups together did interviews witha range of students about a whole range of experiences.
Q3: You weren’t asking, “Do you feel tech-savvy?”
MB: No, we had better evidence than that.

Q4: I feel there is ambiguity in some of your data, for example social networking as part of the course. What would be interesting to see how much of the use of social networking was student-led and lecturer-led.
MB: That’s why we asked them about whether or not they think it’s a good idea for tutors to use the sites.
Q4: But are we pushing technology onto students when it’s not necessary? How much of the student population doesn’t use the library?
MB: If it’s something we want to do, we need to be aware of where the numbers fall. Is it something we need to worry about, or is it something we need to do something about?
Q4: But will they become a formal part of the course?
MB: That’ll be part of the next session.

Maggie Fieldhouse, The Google Generation

I’m coming to this from a librarianship background. How many people here are from a library background? (show of hands) The report was commissioned by JISC and the British Library. Both have an interest in how changes in ICT and publishing methods will affect information researchers of the future. We were asked to look at how new researchers would use information and how we need to adjust approaches.

Information-seeking behaviour has changed because of search engines and the knowledge economy. First of all I want to talk about how the research was carried out. It was short-term, so we didn’t have a lot of time. It was based on literature reviews, looking at publications from the 1980s to identify generational differences in information-seeking behaviour - Generation X/baby boomers, Generation Y and the Google Generation. We also looked at longitudinal studies over a period of time, to see how information-seeking behaviour has changed - cast your mind back to the first days of CD-ROMs in libraries - things have changed. We also looked at transaction logs; by analysing them you can get a sense of who’s searching and what their behaviour is. Finally, we looked at new technologies - things like Facebook, myspace, Web 2.0 technologies and how they were affecting business as well as education.

Before I go into the findings, I want to set the scene by looking at some reports - teachers are concerned about the impact the web has on plagiarism; and Tara Brabazon’s book The University of Google criticising students’ lack of skill and judgement displayed by undergraduates, because they don’t know how to assess information; and the media review of such reports.

So how different is the Google generation? Publication methods affect that - there’s open access, repositories, and resources are managed differently. There’s a trend towards interactive methods of searching rather than passive searching through print media. How can people distinguish between user-generated content and authoritative sources? Do students use the information and find it more effectively, or does digital literacy hide poor information-seeking skills? Are younger generations actually more competent? Have older generations adapted? Surprisingly, yes. Older people who use IT and internet catch up quickly. Over-65s spend more time on the internet than 14-25s. Is the Google Generation a myth? The research we did suggests it’s a myth. It’s assumed young people can multitask with their technology, but it’s not necessarily true. Malcolm said that social networking wasn’t used by a small percentage of young people; other research shows it can be up to 20%. Not all young people use ICT and the internet to that extent. Google is an important part of all our lives.

The perceptions are that young people are expert at using computers. Maybe they use them a lot, but they’re not necessarily competent. They use search engines, but maybe not effectively. Most are satisfied with their search results - yes, mostly, but good enough isn’t necessarily enough for higher education. They need to evaluate the information they receive in more depth. They want short answers and soundbites, and there are issues there about whether the information they find is appropriate for their needs. Younger people rely on other people for information rather than using libraries, which can help them to understand how information can be retrieved.

Everyone searches horizontally rather than vertically - the way librarians do. It does raise concerns about information literacy and also education in general - information skills need to be developed at an early age, as university is too late. Soundbites and executive summaries and abstracts mean that scholarly behaviour has changed. Is this a dumbing down? Possibly. Librarians need to raise their profile as part of the information change. We need to do research on how users behave, and need to make content easier to use. There are vast amounts of resources that libraries pay for.

We need to get information skills on the agenda, and close the gap between what people think they’re doing and what they’re actually doing. There’s been more work done on this in the US and in Australia. Keep things in perspective - libraries have been around for a long time, and digital libraries only for 10 or 15 years. There are lots of challenges still to deal with.

Q&A

Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes: In terms of information literacy, I wondered that you didn’t refer to SCONUL. Is that still valid?
MF: Yes, Sconul, and the American Library Association. There’s a lot of good practice. I could have mentioned it but I ran out of time. They run through the stages of information seeking.

John Salmon, University of Leeds: We blame learners for plagiarism. You can remove it by changing the types of assignment and by getting them to reflect on the process.
MF: But that could also be a generational thing - some tutors might not have changed their assignments.

Judy Hardy, University of Edinburgh: Take that example - is there evidence anywhere that the quality of the work that’s being produced is better or worse?
MF: We’ve not looked at plagiarism.
JH: That’s an aspect of it, but I mean in terms of overall quality.
Q1: The book you cited does mention that. It has been criticised because it only looks at media studies. There’s more to be done. Originally we were supposed to be teaching students subjects, not information skills.
MF: That should be done at an earlier age.
Q1: We need to be worried about subject skills. Can I just point out that Wikipedia has a different definition of “the Google generation” than you?

Martin Locock, National Library of Wales: How do you use people’s searches to generate data?
MF: Any web search generates log files. You type in a search string and it’s generating data. I’ve been involved in the literature review, not the transactional side. You do get enormous amounts of information. You can see the search terms and what pages they look at.

Helen Beetham, e-learning consultant, Becoming Digital

I want to move towards turning the onus over to you, as I get the feeling that these are issues you have a lot to say about. I’ll look at some of my own findings, then move on to thinking what we should do to respond to learners. Do we follow, lead, diagnose - what should we be doing? Although I’m involved in the learner experience programme, these are my questions, and you all have your own context from which you can answer them.

I just want to reiterate that technology is becoming more pervasive among learners, but that there is a question mark over whether ‘academic’ use of technology is equally pervasive. There are questions raised around whether the learners are radical in terms of their use of technology for learning. Students tend to find that as they become more expert, they are more confident in using a wider range of technologies. Most learners learn a great deal about how to use technology from their academic experience.

We can’t organise technology for learning on the assumption that young learners will lead the way, or that academic institutions should follow. I want to go back a step, and talk about the themes emerging from the e-learning programmes. I want to think now about the theme of “effective e-learners” and what that means. We have some tentative findings which you can probably substantiate anecdotally about what constitutes an effective e-learner. We can say that many of the learners involved in these projects are using ready-to-hand devices and services to help fit into their lives; some are finding their own preferred balance between learning experiences; some are using sophisticated strategies for finding, evaluating and using information. It might not be academically sophisticated, but it is certainly strategic. Smaller numbers are engaged in content creation and sharing. We might need to think about those students as a resource for us.

One of the things for me that’s nice is that we had a shared set of values reflected back at us throughout the project, demonstrated across the curriculum and the learning lifecycle. It’s a holistic way of thinking about where learners are going. Thinking about all those values, a good word for it is that effective e-learners have their own methods of literacy. That’s a word coming up every time we talk about this programme.

Maggie talked about information literacy, and that’s a big part of it. People in an institution have different understandings of what literacy means to them. I’m going to ask you - what IS literacy in a digital age? (group discussion)

HB: Has anyone solved it?
Q1: It’s a word of the moment. It’s a buzzword.
Q2: Although I’m possibly not representative, I think it’s a matter of scale. Before we had to filter information according to credibility. Now you can get millions of responses. If somebody writes history about 10,000 years ago, there’s too little information to go by to make credible judgements. In 10,000 years, people will have too much information about today.
HB: It’s a buzzword, it’s something to do with judgement. I would guess there has to be some kind of communication. There are many media. Visual literacy is very different now. There are different ways of representing knowledge. And there are activities people engage with relative to that - interpreting, understanding, and so on.
Q3: One of the things we were talking about was competency. I think the word “literacy” sounds strange from my background.
Q4: Context as well. Children are literate outside the school setting - they do judge, they analyse, they use these skills, just not in the formal educational setting. What screws them up in education?
HB: Why don’t they have a sense of agency? It seems to me that you’re talking about something to do with values and how people come to do these activities and where they think their place is in relation to information. How can they move through access to skills and strategies for dealing with information? We can’t assume learners have skills. We have to get that stuff right before we think about how learners make choices of who to learn with and how to learn. There’s an idea that one day a learner might be able to create their own learning environment or context.

I did a keynote speech about digital storytelling. As we move from old technologies to new ones, there’s a movement from curriculum to learning opportunities. There’s less story about how you’re going to move through your learning - new learners need to be able to tell their own stories.

So it’s over to you.

Should we respond to learners’ own personal technology practices? How?
Should we actively develop learners’ technology practices and digital literacies? How?

Q1: All through this session I was thinking you could change “learners” to “teachers”. If teachers could learn this

stuff, it would inspire the students.
Rhona Sharpe: We’re all learning.
Q2: The only reason any of these technologies should be brought in is if it’s effective, not if it’s fashionable. It

needs to be important. So presumably the reason why the majority of academics aren’t using something is because

it’s not widespread. If Second Life was important enough as a communication platform, academics would use it.
RS: My day job is staff development. The difference is that we’ve been finding about how people use technologies -

it’s been bottom-up. Learners tell us what they find effective.
Judy Hardy, University of Edinburgh: I think it needs to be embedded in the whole question of are student learners effective? Certainly

newly arriving students often are not. They know they should be. They may not know what it means or how to go

about it. I think these questions fit well into that.
RS: It’s amazing about how many effective e-learners are just effective learners.
HB: I think it’s interesting to acknowledge that some practices come about because of learners’ familiarity with Web

2.0. Academia can either sharpen up and respond to contemporary knowledge practice, or formal education needs to be

clearer about what it values in terms of knowledge practice. For example, plagiarism is a key point where these two

value systems are meeting. Learners don’t necessarily see the contradiction.
JH: Probably more in some subjects than others.
Q3: If you observe the social technologies spreading for free, let’s think about universities. can we provide a

service of the same quality that Google provides? Students and researchers use these tools which are available, and

then it raises questions of confidentiality, copyright and so on. I don’t think we in the community address these things. If students don’t like what they get from university they’ll use something else.
HB: I do think that we’re identifying that there’s a basic entitlement of equality of access. All learners need to be able to access the e-learning they need. Learners will be using tools and devices not provided by the university.
Q3: Which university can provide a 7GB user account for email. None. I know that quite often researchers use their university address as a formal communication tool, but then to exchange information they use a Google account.
HB: But then there are some coming to university who’ve not had an email account before. We mustn’t lose sight of them.
Ellen Lessner, Abingdon and Witney College: In FE, it’s clear to me that we are not developing students’ technology practices, because staff don’t know about it themselves.
RS: A lot of the things we’re seeing are going to move us towards institutionalising things that need to be done, and it’ll be less dependent on individual lecturers. We’ll say, we need to map graduate attributes and how they’re going to change, and it’ll be less dependent on individuals.
MF: It’s got to come from below - schools, colleges, further education. There are librarians interested in developing these skills, but it needs to come from teachers too, but do they have time to address the IT skills they need?
EL: It has to be part of the system.
MF: Technological skills to have to be addressed.
Malcolm Riley, University of Greenwich: We train teachers for different sectors. If you want to qualify as a primary/secondary teacher, you need greater competence than the teachers who actually train you.
MF: How many academics don’t have any teaching qualifications?
HB: Some of the skills have to be provided through practitioners to learners. Once people are in the profession, they need to have time to develop these skills, with support. They learn effective information skills and digital learning skills within a curriculum they care about.
Q4: I agree that you need to start lower down, but that’s happening. In Scotland, it’s part of the curriculum in primary schools. The gap will lessen again. In my opinion, there is a critical need to value these technologies before we start to embrace them. There’s a danger that we’re technology-led.
HB: I think all this learner experience work is going in the direction you want it to. What learners need and want isn’t about sexy technology.
Lydia Weller, University of Kent: People have to make decisions when they leave academia, but they need to be trained to make that choice.
MF: It’s a lifelong learning agenda.
RS: I think it’s an important point beyond what happens at university. It’s about preparing students for what happens afterwards.
Q5: Another angle is the provision of computing services. I think that in my institution they see their role as providing the infrastructure rather than supporting the learners.
HB: It’s an institutional issue. There’s a two-pronged approach - what do we provide, and what do we enable to allow learners to develop their own practices. I don’t think it’s just for the libraries.
Q6: I was recently asked to be an external PhD examiner outside my own discipline. I was appalled that the literature searches were just literature searches. I wanted to know what search terms they used, what databases they searched, and they looked at me blankly. What hope have we got? You’d be crucified for not having that level of justification for what you’re doing.
Peter Hartley, University of Bradford: But that wasn’t around in previous generations. All these myths that have been discussed today. The only reason we got the literacy skills we had in our generation was because if we weren’t in the library getting those books at 9am, they’d all be gone, and we’d have to find something else!

July 15, 2008 | Filed Under jif08 | Author Carrie Dunn 

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