Great Expectations or Entitlement?

The overriding theme in anecdotal discourse and the literature of, and surrounding, teaching to a net generation is expectation.  For a generation beginning life less than two decades ago, Negroponte (1996) observed a change from ‘atoms into bits and pixels’.  Andone, Dron and Pemberton (2009), as Tapscott (2009) advocates of ‘grown up digital’ and ‘digital students’, reported on digital technologies integrated as a feature of everyday life and acknowledged that digital students use technology differently from previous generations, that is, fluidly and simultaneously.  They tested the desirability and future development and evaluation of learning spaces informed by digital students’ attitudes, posing the question: What is now a learning space?  And challenging the leap of correlation that use equals learning use.

A practical rationale for, and experiences with integrating [video games] into K-20 curriculum was presented by Annetta (2008).  Wang Wu Wang (2009) expanded on this purporting that acceptance of m-learning by individuals is critical to the successful implementation of m-learning systems, and therefore identified a need to research the factors affecting user intention, including a study on age and gender variables.  They found age moderated effort expectancy and social influence, where gender differences moderated the effects of social influence and self-management.  Kazlauskas and Robinson (2012) began with the premise that 21C students are expected to utilise emerging technologies but their findings reinforced the observation that [podcasts] were not embraced by everyone, despite flexibility and mobility of learning opportunities.  Significant numbers of learners preferred face-to-face and read or listen study environments.

Our relationship, as teachers, with technology determines how we teach to a net generation.  This is articulated by Tapscott (2009) who tells us technology is only technology if you’ve never seen it before.  Maushaus (2011) gives us the ‘fish in water’ analogy:  Whoever invented water, it wasn’t fish.  Fish inhabit water.  They live in it.  The net generation, is unable to step back from the technology and comment on it.  They don’t acknowledge it.  It is a given.  This phenomenon can be observed with any change at any time in history; with any technology and any generation.

Donnison (2009) asks, ‘Who’s teaching the teachers to teach?’  She argues Gen Y’s understanding of lifelong learning has been influenced by their engagements with digital technologies, and that while they may have appropriated the discourse of change, this does not indicate overall capacity for change agency.  Teachers in Gen X and beyond, as adopters of change will have a different relationship, entitlement and expectation of learning with technology than their students at any time in history and constantly evolve and move to align pedagogy with curriculum.  We are concerned with the use of technology in an ‘art for art’s’ sake manner?  Also where do we divide the generations?  Is there an overlap?  Are there anomalies that are a moving target in a 3D space? We see these same concerns from Wang, Wiesemes and Gibbons (2012) who raised vital questions about what constitutes a meaningful mobile learning experience, taking into account differing biographical and life stage factors.  They challenged the ongoing tension of generation aligned with use of technology and expanded this to a discussion of digital fluency of all learners.

 In 2010 Gupta and Koo observed that the acceleration of mobile device use among consumers is exponential.  They queried whether the parallel of mobile devices as expected learning tools displayed any consequent effectiveness as learning tools, or was the use in learning and teaching just a form of communication.  Kim, Jain, Westoff and Rezabek (2008) examined if teachers’ perceptions of faculty modelling of technologies affected their intent to use and found that on actual use interaction was insignificant.  This disconnect between intention and action leads us to consider critical mass and contemporaneous need to bring about change in the learning space.

Monahan (2007) observes that continuous enhancements and literacy have resulted in a generation of students who expect increasingly more from their e-learning experiences.  This has seen radical change from text-based environments to more stimulating multimedia systems, now extended to mobile platforms, always more available and more convenient for users.  She reminds us that providing truly collaborative and interactive mobile learning tools is still a challenge.  These thoughts are pursued by Hardy’s (2010) concept of practice architectures framing the social world and considering political, material and cultural pressures supporting increased use of new technology and stimulating productive teaching practices, but concerned by the availability of resources inhibiting delivery to a self-described entitled population of students.

But I think Thomas and Brown (2011) understand and articulate contemporary learners best when they describe, not a new process of learning, but a new culture in which organic learning grows, adapts and questions.