"How Do [They] Even Do That?": How Today's Technology is Shaping Tomorrow's Students

Amanda Lenhart | Pew Research CenterDartmouth College

April 9, 2013

• Part of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” based in Washington, DC

• PRC’s mission is to provide high quality, objective data to thought leaders and policymakers

• Pew data included in this talk is from nationally representative telephone surveys of U.S. adults and teens (on landlines and cell phones)

• Presentation slides and all data are available at pewinternet.org

I. WHAT IS THE TECHNOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT OF TODAY’S TEENS?

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This is Elizabeth. She will be a first year college student in the Fall of 2013.

What kind of technology did she grow up with?

What kinds of technology does she use now?

WHAT ARE THE DISRUPTIONS SPURRED BY EACH OF THESE INNOVATIONS?

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Elizabeth – Born 1995

PCs are 20 years old Email is 27 years old

Today:67% of teens use

email

Today:

93% of teens access a desktop/laptop @ home

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Elizabeth – Born 1995

Commercial cell phones were 17 years old

Today:

78% of teens have a cell phone

Elizabeth – Born 1995

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World Wide Web is 5 years old.

Today: 95% of teens use the internet

First great browser – 1993Netscape IPO – Aug. 9,

1995

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Elizabeth – Toddler years

Palm Pilot – 1996

Today:37% of teens own a

smartphone

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Elizabeth – Toddler Years & Pre-school

Blogs – 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003

14% of online teens keep blogs (down from 30% at peak

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Elizabeth – First Grade

Wikipedia - 2001

Today:70% of online youth use Wikipedia

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Elizabeth – Mid-Elementary School

MySpace - 2003 Facebook - 2004

Today:82% of online teens use social network sites

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Elizabeth – Fourth Grade

YouTube – 2005

Today:27% have recorded and then uploaded videos 13% stream live video to the internet37% of teens use video chat

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Elizabeth is in 5th grade | Twitter – 2006

Today:24% of teens use Twitter

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Elizabeth is in 6th Grade. Tumblr is founded in 2007.

Today, 5% of teens use Tumblr.

• T

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Elisabeth – 8th Grade – age 14

Foursquare – 2009Today, 6%

of teens “check-in” with their location

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Instagram – 2010

Elizabeth is 14 – 9th grade.

11% of teens use Instagram; 3% say they use it “most often” of social network sites.

Snapchat- Sept. 2011

Too new to have youth data.

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46% of US adults used the internet

5% had home broadband connections

53% owned a cell phone

0% connected to internet wirelessly

0% used social network sites

_________________________

Information flowed mainly one way

Information consumption was a stationary activity

Internet Use in the U.S. in 2000

Slow, stationary connections built around a desktop

computer

82% of US adults use the internet

2/3 have broadband at home

88% have a cell phone; 46% are smartphone users

19% have a tablet computer

19% have an e-reader

2/3 are wireless internet users

65% of online adults use SNS

The Internet in 2012

Mobile devices have fundamentally changed the

relationship between information, time and space

II. CHANGES TO CAMPUS LIFE AND CULTURE

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGES FORMATION OF RELATIONSHIPS ON

CAMPUS

“Although headed off to different schools, they had a similar experience of learning their roommate assignment and immediately turning to Facebook to investigate that person. Some had already begun developing deep, mediated friendships while others had already asked for roommate transfers. Beyond roommates, all had used Facebook to find other newly minted freshman, building relationships long before they set foot on campus.” – danah boyd

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When pre-frosh turn to Facebook before arriving on campus, they do so to find other people who share their interests, values, and background. As such, they begin a self-segregation process that results in increased “homophily” on campuses. Homophily is a sociological concept that refers to the notion that birds of a feather stick together. In other words, teens inadvertently undermine the collegiate social engineering project of creating diverse connections through common experiences.-danah boyd

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGES INVESTMENT IN CAMPUS

COMMUNITY

Easier to maintain connections with home

• 82% of teens 12-17 use social media sites

• 78% of teens have a cell phone, 37% have a smartphone

• 37% of teens use video chat

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TECHNOLOGY CHANGES OUR RELATIONSHIP TO PLACES

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Augmented reality changes relationship to physical places

Merges data with physical place

III. CHANGES TO EXPECTATIONS AROUND LEARNING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

TECHNOLOGY IS THE CLASSROOM

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Technology IS the classroom

• MOOCs?

• 3% of K-12 students have experience with distance learning

• 270,000 youth go to virtual schools (out of 55.2 million K-12 students in US)

• Blended learning

• Self-directed learning

“When we interview young people, they will talk about how the Internet makes it easy for them to look around and surf for information in low risk and unstructured ways. Some kids immerse themselves in online tutorials, forums, and expert communities where they dive deep into topics and areas of interest, whether it is fandom, creative writing, making online videos, or gaming communities.” – Mimi Ito

“Young people are desperate for learning that is relevant and part of the fabric of their social lives, where they are making choices about how, when, and what to learn, without it all being mapped for them in advance.”

TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

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Bring Your Own DeviceBring Your Own Device

What do students do with cell phones in the classroom?

• 42% use the phone to look up information in class

• 38% take pictures or record a video for a class assignment

• 18% upload school related content to the internet• 11% text in class with teacher or other student as

a part of a class assignment• 2% use an online cell phone platform like CELLY

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The “Flipped Classroom”

K-12 teachers are not impressed

• 87% of AP & NWP teachers say these technologies are creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans”

• 83% say amount of available information is overwhelming

• 76% of teachers “strongly agree” that internet search engines have condition students to expect to find information quickly & easily

• 67% say technologies “do more to distract students than help them academically.”

• Discourages wide use of resources and makes it harder to find credible materials

But teachers also find positives

• 99% of AP & NWP teachers say it gives students access to wider range of resources

• 77% of teachers say internet & digital search tools have “a mostly positive” impact on HS student research habits

• 65% say it makes students more self-sufficient in their research

Final thoughts & questions

• Technology changes our relationship to place, but the fundamental lure of the elite residential college will remain.

• Continue to engage in practices that put people with different experiences together, to counteract the pull of technology of like towards like

• The learners walking through your doors will continue to be shaped by an ever-changing technological milieu – how much will you move to meet them and how much will you hold on to the value and efficiencies of the current teaching models?

• Are MOOCs the new textbook? Will we flip our classrooms with MOOCs?

• How will colleges manage the challenges of distraction while harnessing the promise and opportunities of bringing devices into the classroom?

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Katherine is 8 months old

What will it be like to be a college student when she attends, 17 years from now?

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Amanda LenhartPew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projecthttp://www.pewinternet.org@amanda_lenhart

photo by arcticpenguin