Teaching our grandchildren to suck eggs? Introducing the study of communication technologies to the “Digital generation”

Abstract It has been argued that age-related and generational differences in communication technology use and more generally in learning style and mindset increasingly divide lecturers from students. This paper reports an investigation of one cohort of level 1 students’ current communication practices and learning styles conducted in order to adapt a module in direct response to student need. A small scale survey of communication and web use was undertaken and students completed the Kolb learning style inventory. The results demonstrate that the sweeping generalizations of generational or age related difference are not a firm foundation for pedagogy. For example, familiarity and use of Web2.0 technologies was patchy and students seemed to prefer to be consumers not producers, though they did show a preference for immediate communication. This reinforced our sense of the need to teach students about many Web2.0 technologies, especially the content creation aspects. Students had diverse learning styles and their preferences did not suggest a radical change from the past. The need continues to be to offer a variety of learning opportunities for a diverse student body. The paper demonstrates the value of systematic data collection about students’ existing knowledge and practices and of assessed reflective activities to stimulate students to be more active in negotiating a successful learning experience for themselves.


Introduction
In the light of the many claims that student use of the web and other communication technologies, indeed their fundamental learning styles may be changing, this paper reports a small scale investigation into level one undergraduates' use of Web2.0 and other technologies. The objective was to fit the module design to student need and behaviour patterns.

Background
It is a recurrent fear in Higher Education that lecturers are out of touch with students especially undergraduates straight out of school. Sacks (1996), for example, articulated fears about the conflict resulting from different views of education between "baby boomers" and "Generation X". Another generation gap has seemingly opened up with the identification of "Millennials" aka Generation Y, the Internet Gen or Nexters (e.g. Zemke, 2001, Oblinger, 2003, Raines, 2007 who are "digital natives" or the "google generation". Apparently Millennials are "sociable, optimistic, talented, well-educated, collaborative, open-minded, influential, and achievement orientated" (Raines, 2007). They are supposedly tied together by a shared set of demographics and by having lived through a set of defining historical events. A degree of scepticism about these alleged trends is surely justified. It seems odd, as the concept of a 'Millennial' generation does, for example, to bracket together everyone born since 1982; and the concept globalises American social trends. Even the wikipedia entry on the subject of "Generation Y" at the time of writing contained a large number of banners marking parts of the text as containing "original research or unverified claims" (Wikipedia, 2007).
Discussion of these alleged changes tends to be rather woolly and speculative.
For example, Oblinger (2001) quotes Frand (2000) for a number of trends characteristic of the "information-age mindset" of the "new students". However, when probed these trends seems questionable. The first claim is that "computers aren't technology", i.e. that computers are taken for granted.
However, clearly some technologies remain new and exciting, even if other usages have slipped into the background as obvious and taken for granted.
Other claims in this discourse are simply not true, e.g. "The Internet is better than TV" implies that TV has been overtaken by the Internet. In fact, while the Internet is eroding into TV watching time, TV still occupies more hours (Ofcom 2006). Furthermore, the Internet may be used for watching TV. One accepts the truth of many of Frand's trends but they seem to affect us all, e.g. the growing intolerance of delay. The death of the real was heralded in the 1970s. Very broad changes do seem to be occurring and it is reasonable to suppose that those who are young now are more affected by them, but the generational framework for thinking about it seems at best simplistic.
It is more plausible to see many differences identified as generational as more properly reflecting differences of life stage. Thus Szeto (2005) quotes a schematic for seven ages of financial behaviour, based on life style and income tied to age. Presumably such a logic also applies to many aspects of behaviour.
For example, university students have a certain set of communication needs and their personal social network has a particular (rapidly changing) shape; one that alters radically as they enter employment or get married.  (Prensky, 2001a, 2001b, Update 2007, Digital natives, 2007. In this concept the digital native is habituated to "twitch-speed, multitasking, randomaccess, graphics-first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their video games" (Prensky, 2001b (Horrigan, 2007) or "eengagement" in the UK (spatial-literacy, 2007). Age is not necessarily the dominant variable, but commentators have found significant differences emerging that may be relevant to learning: There is also evidence of a significant difference in communications usage patterns between young adults and the general population: for example, 16-24 year olds spend on average 21 minutes more time online per week, send 42 more SMS text messages, but spend over seven hours less time watching television. (Ofcom, 2006) Like many past generations "children in each of the past several decades have always been exposed to new technologies -and made emotional and rational tradeoffs among them" (Szeto, 2005). It is important to be precise here, however. Excited writing about Web2.0 tends to imply that it has been adopted most actively by "young people". Yet the most active in adopting Web2.0 technologies according to a 2007 Pew study, "the Omnivores", have a median age of 28 (Horrigan, 2007, p.6). The Spire project survey gives a different impression, though again it does not indicate marked generational differences (White, 2007). Interestingly, the 2005 Oxford Internet Survey actually found a small and declining number of people were trying to set up a web page (Dutton et al., 2005, p.4,6).
Setting aside the more millenarian writing about generational difference and on purely pragmatic grounds it seems important to systematically learn more about students existing knowledge and pattern of communication use. Doubly so, as in our case, for a module on communication.

The module: "Information and Communication Networks in
Organizations"  (Hamm, 2007). So Web2.0 technologies may be quite quickly adopted in organizational settings. This process potentially empowers the students by valuing their knowledge of the latest communication technologies. Certainly, we have anecdotal evidence that students' familiarity with the latest communication technologies will be valued by first employers. In the module we also try to build up general principles that can be used to apply web paradigms inside organizations. Naturally, students are particularly interested in research in mobile communication or IM because they themselves use it daily.

Information and Communication Networks in
A second strand in the module is encouragement of the students to reflect more about their own personal learning and communication preferences. Practical sessions discuss learning styles, and this is assessed by a weekly, online learning log. Our premise was that students reflecting on their learning and communication within the module, and being more aware of their own style/preferences would encourage a 'deeper' approach to learning (as conceptualized by Entwistle 1998) and hence greater understanding of organisational information and communication networks.
Experience of encouraging students to reflect upon their learning during this module suggested this was not a straightforward task. Students prioritise their time and balance their University commitments with social and other needs.
Unless there is some element of compulsion, many students would delay recording any reflective thoughts until nearer the coursework 'hand-in' date.
There is also a tendency among some students to 'simply' describe their learning experiences without engaging in any meaningful personal and academic reflection.
Our solution was to use one of the University's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) tools (WebCT Personal Journal) that enabled students to draft and post entries throughout the semester. These could be viewed and formatively commented upon by tutors, minimising the risk of students misunderstanding the coursework aims. The postings were 'time-stamped' by the VLE enabling us to know how regularly and frequently the students posted. As the regularity and frequency of their postings was a component of the final mark, it was hoped that would be sufficient motivation to take this aspect of the coursework seriously.
To introduce this strand of the coursework and for students to gain a better understanding of their own learning style, and the various key conceptions and debate surrounding learning styles (e.g. Coffield et al, 2004), a series of 'practical' sessions was planned. These sessions were also used as an opportunity to promote the reflective element in the Department's framework for Personal Development Planning (PDP).

Our research
The purpose of the research reported here, therefore, was to collect some systematic data from students at the beginning of the module about their use of communication technologies. This would be used to help shape the module to better meet student need/ability and knowledge. We also planned to investigate learning preferences and encourage students to be more reflective about their practices and preferences. Our research question in response to claimed generational changes was "to identify students' communication practices, Web use and learning preferences" to shape the content and style of the teaching of the module. More specific objectives were, firstly, to gauge students' familiarity and use with Web2.0 technologies. Secondly, we wished to explore their communication channel preferences. Thirdly we also were to investigate their learning styles.

Method
In undertaking the research the module teaching team worked closely with Stephen Tapril a research student making "An investigation into the impact of the Millennials Generation on academic library services and the skills of library staff". Together we designed a short questionnaire that students could be asked to fill in. It encompassed use of classic Web2.0 sites, general internet and mobile use and preferred learning styles. The full questionnaire is reproduced below as an appendix. Questions were derived from our own knowledge of the field, both of new technologies and characteristic issues, such as around addiction or willingness to meet people first encountered online in person.
The research was cleared with University of Sheffield ethics principles. Also, in administering the questionnaire it was emphasised to students that there was no requirement to participate. Submissions were anonymous. Students were asked to complete the questionnaire in the first practical and preliminary results were reported to them in the lecture in week two. 25 out of 45 registered students completed the survey. This response rate was probably influenced more by technical difficulties saving the file after download and attendance rates than a reluctance to participate in the research.

5.
Survey results 5.1. Knowledge and use of Web2.0 The main question in the questionnaire asked students to say how frequently they used 13 resources or types of tool. If they reported that they had never heard of it an item was scored as 0, having heard of it but never used it 1, using it occasionally 2, weekly 3 and daily 4.  The majority of respondents gave as their favourite website or resource a site that could be seen as a content sharing site: that is, video sharing portals such as YouTube and Alluc.org. Sports websites followed in popularity. In particular, sports sites tended to relate to football clubs of which presumably respondents were fans. Social networking (sites such as MySpace and Facebook) were less mentioned, than might have been expected.

Figure 1: blog/website ownership
Of the total respondents less than one third, acknowledged owning or maintaining a blog or website. While Web 2.0 is based upon the premise of content sharing, it appears that in this small sample at least, individuals in this age group were satisfied with consuming content and did not participate in using technologies to create or share content.

Communication practices
The survey examined the use of a variety of methods of communication, including traditional telephone calls, in order to assess the extent to which there was a preference for online or offline communication. We were also interested in whether the advent of voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging displace traditional methods of communication.  The results indicate that students still place emphasis on the telephone for communicating with family and friends. Instant messaging does seem to have made some in-road into traditional methods and was rated higher than physical face-to-face visits. The question did include blogs as an option but none of the respondents considered the method to be important. Interestingly, email was rated quite low in importance. It could be that 'real time' conversation is valued more by respondents, which would explain why telephone use and instant messaging are rated so highly.  The low rating for email is still surprising, when it is considered that all respondents acknowledged frequently using e-mail accounts other than that provided by the university (Question 10). The majority (56%) reported having one additional account, while the remaining 44% reported having two. No respondent acknowledged running three or more additional email accounts.
Since the students reported the main reason for using the Internet was to "communicate with family and friends", (followed by "music" and "studying"), the relatively low importance assigned to email in the findings might be explained in an overall assessment of online versus offline communication methods. That is, the findings seem to suggest: • The student group placed heavy emphasis on the Internet as a medium for communication • Methods of communication are valued for being able to support 'real time' conversation, and for convenience, not in terms of 'offline'or 'online' preference Respondents were also asked whether they maintained online friendships, and whether those friendships had extended to meeting people offline. The findings, illustrated by Figure 5, suggest that in fact most of the sample did not have relationships with someone they had first met online. This suggests that the majority of communication taking place online is with existing friends and relations. However, those that do maintain online friendships seem to exhibit enough trust in those relationships to warrant meeting people offline: 80% of respondents said they had met people from the Internet.

Learning preferences
The final survey question asked students describe their learning preferences through responding to four groups of paired descriptors. The descriptors were kept as simple as possible in order that participants could relate to them more readily. The aim was to investigate the claim in the literature that this age group are collaborative and active learners.

Figure 5: learning preferences by paired descriptors
While scarcely conclusive, these findings illustrate that the majority of the students preferred to work alone, with instructions and support available.
Participants appeared to be evenly divided on the matter of preferring practicalbased learning or theory-based learning. Quite apart from the small size of the sample, it is possible that there is a bias in the result because not all students attended the practicals or lectures where the questionnaire was distributed and so did not complete it, and students who saw themselves as more self-reliant would be more likely to be non-attendors. Yet the findings contrast quite sharply with the socially-oriented but independent learning preference claimed for this age group in the literature.
The primary conclusion to be drawn was that there was diversity of learning preferences which needed to be accomodated in the module.

Learning styles
In addition to reporting the survey results to them, at a later practical session we also asked students to complete a more standard learning style self assessment. Kolb's (1999) Learning Style Inventory (LSI) is recognised to be a potentially useful tool for profiling a group of students (Coffield, 2004). Whilst the LSI is not a diagnostic tool, all students said that they recognised many of the characteristics in their individual profiles. The results are set out in Table 3.  Our approach was to stimulate students themselves to reflect more on their learning style and media use. We decided to encourage this through an assessed weekly learning journal. This would also give us further insight into the learning preferences of our students, with potential to fit the module to their apparent needs.

Learning Journal
Anecdotal evidence suggested that in previous years even the most conscientious of students made few reflective notes during the course of the module and the quality of their reflections was generally descriptive and evaluative. In this presentation of the module the use of a VLE to 'timestamp' students' postings throughout the module had a significant effect upon the regularity of the students' reflective thoughts. 42% (19/45) of students were judged to have reflected regularly (i.e. approximately once every two weeks).
Unfortunately, the remaining 58% of students were deemed to have not regularly posted to the VLE. Furthermore, 29% of students were judged to have been sufficiently critical, deeper and personal in their postings.
For those students who did engage with the activity there were signs of a sophisticated awareness of personal need, that could feed into module design.
For example, this particularly personal and deep reflection: " However, some students, occasionally by their own admission, continued to adopt a 'surface' (Entwistle, 1998)  Overall, there was a strong sense of diversity and the need to provide diverse routes into learning, rather than assuming all students have the same style.

Conclusions
In relation to our first research objective, to find out about patterns of Web2.0 use, there was quite a clear message that familiarity with Web2.0 sites was patchy, and even those that were known, were used as consumers not contributors. The finding for our second research objective was to emphasize the importance of IM, text messaging and communication through SN sites (probably Facebook). No clear pattern emerged in relation to the third objective, in the area of learning styles, but if anything these students were seeking guidance and support.
For our immediate purposes the response rate on the questionnaire was satisfactory, and subsequent experience suggested that the major findings for the group were representative. For the reader, the sample must be problematically small. However, the findings do challenge easy assumptions about trends in the use of Web2.0, for example. The general point is made that systematic investigation of the student skill set is of value in shaping learning content and support styles.
6. Practical implications 6.1. Teaching of Web2.0 Perhaps they should not have been, but several of the results of the study were unexpected to us. For example, we were surprised that many of the classic Web2.0 sites, such as Del.icio.us and Flickr, were unknown or at least little used. This could possibly have reflected our being behind the times in identifying the most "cool" sites. Like Poulter (2007) we were unfamiliar with Veoh which was mentioned frequently as a favourite site. The stress on IM and mobile was expected, but it was salutary to see the preference confirmed in hard statistics.
Despite students' relative lack of use of blogging, we retained the topic in the module as a technology with a momentum towards increased use in the corporate sector (e.g. Cass et al., 2005, Lewis Global Relations, 2007. We set up practicals to examine how both blogs and wikis worked behind the scenes. Talking to students in these sessions confirmed the hunch that Wikipedia is heavily used as a source, but few students contribute to the content or understood how it worked (cf White, 2007, p.12). Many "Web2.0" technologies do need to be taught to the digital generation.
In addition, in the final session of the module a substantial block of time was devoted to an exercise in which students were invited to explore how the application of principles of management taught in relation to online communities

Learning journal
Our approach in relation to learning styles, recognizing the diversity in the group, was twofold. Firstly, we offered a diversity of learning experiences e.g. a rich mix of lectures, practicals, group work and online material. Much of the practical material could be conducted independently, since everything required was available via WebCT. We did consider offering "virtual practicals" where there was a requirement to complete the work but it could be done at any time.
It could perhaps be supported using IM. In fact, the main obstacle here was the difficulty of implementing this within WebCT. Ultimately, however, the results of our surveys did suggest a desire for support and instruction.
More importantly, we tried to use the assessed reflective journal to stimulate students to themselves think harder about their own preferences and to empower them to make choices about how they managed their own learning within the resources made available in the module. This was not entirely successful. Whilst the individual reflective journal was a relative success in that there was a significant improvement in the regularity and the quality of reflections compared to previous years, we were still concerned that almost a third of the students failed this aspect of the coursework. Our conclusion is not that the approach is wrong, but to recognize how far such reflective work needs to be supported. Implicit in our demand to complete a journal was a requirement to reflect at a personal level and to write in the first person. Writing reflectively is a specific style, which it is difficult to learn. Elsewhere, of course, we were also requiring writing in an academic style where the passive voice is usually preferred and the approach is to be critical and synthetic rather than reflective. Anecdotal evidence suggests that our students struggle to decide when and where it is acceptable to include their opinion their work. Furthermore, sharing reflections relies upon a particular form of trust between the tutor and the student. Students were unlikely to explore and reveal sensitive and deep issues with a tutor they know little or relate to in a particular way. Arguably, therefore there may be a correlation between the mark for this aspect of the coursework and the relationship between the tutor and student (if it could be measured). We conclude, therefore, that there is a conflict in our demands for this aspect of the coursework and that for a Level 1 undergraduate module we need to be more explicit about what is expected and simplify the requirements.

Conclusion
The results of the survey were from a tiny sample: one cohort in one department in one university in one country. We might had very different results (and drawn different conclusions) if we were teaching English, for example, because of a different pattern of preference about communicating using IT.
However, we do think the results are interesting at a general level as undercutting simplistic thinking about how student knowledge and attitudes are changing.
Certainly our own patterns of communication technology use, as middle aged adults (Stephen excepted) are quite different from that of our students. We use email heavily, IM not at all. For all its virtues, Wikipedia is not terribly good for academic work. Blogs seem rather outmoded. We are only slowly coming to see a value in Youtube. Students stressed the importance of the fact of services like Youtube or Veoh being free, whereas we have money and less time.
Nevertheless, their knowledge of Web2.0 technologies, for example, is quite patchy and the theoretical constructs developed for CMC continue to be relevant.
Conducting the survey was a useful way to reflect about differences and contrasts in behaviour between ourselves and students and to explicitly discuss them within the module. It empowered the students to recognise their own expertise in certain technologies, some of which we frankly acknowledged our own ignorance of, but equally it identified gaps we needed actively to fill. It helped us to think through how we needed to support an arguably increasingly diverse student population, while avoiding the easy assumption that they are equally knowledgeable across all "new" technologies or wish to learn in a particular way. The introduction of a substantial level of reflective work into the module proved challenging but can be built on to encourage students to negotiate the learning experience that fits their needs.