The 2012 Student
A little bit before the beginning of the semester, I started to reflect on the fact that this is my 5th year teaching in some capacity. Two of those years I was doing double duty as both a Student and Teaching Assistant, but I’ll still count it. It has however, been three years since I’ve been a student at all, and a lot has changed in those three years. Being a student for the 2012-2013 school year is a lot different than being one for the 2006-2007 year (my last year as an undergrad), or even the 2008-2009 year (my last year as a grad student). Expectations change, and as a teacher, I need to learn how to adapt.
Let’s look at some things that have emerged since 2008-2009:
- The iPad was released (2010)
- An app-centric culture
- The emergence of other tablets (Android, Kindle Fire, etc)
- 4G (2010-2011)
- The Macbook Air and other ‘Ultrabooks’
- Retina Display
- Digital Music sales top Physical Music sales (src)
- The Cloud is a thing now.
Even more since 2006-2007:
- The first iPhone (2007)
- The first Android phone (2008)
- The first Kindle (2007)
We are moving have moved into a digital world and students are fully embracing it. They are bringing laptops and tablets to classes. Of my 44 students this semester, 32 have smart phones. Heck my friend’s 12 year old sister was complaining she wouldn’t have her iPhone for the first day of class. I’m willing to bet very few of them have used a phonebook and “Googling it” is becoming second nature. All of these things are shaping students expectations, making them think in a very different way from the way most of my Undergrad class thought the year we graduated. Teachers need to adapt to this.
Changing Expectations
Mobile
Luke Wroblewski (@lukew) has some incredible stats on the shift to mobile. Perhaps the most important one to college professors is this (emphasis mine):
Among American adults (18-29) who use the Internet on their phones, 45% do most of their web surfing there. For all age groups, though, preferences are shifting away from desktops and laptops and toward mobile devices.
That is staggering. Even more, some reports project that by 2014, 50% of all Internet traffic in the USA will come from mobile. That means students are spending most of their time on their mobile devices (smartphones, tablets). Because of this, as a teacher you should make your website mobile friendly (also, you should definitely have a website). Make it so students can easily find the information they need from their iPhones or Galaxy Nexuses. Based on the above stat, they are probably going to your site from those devices.
Digital Content/The Cloud
With the emergence of mp3 players, e-readers, and streaming video, we are quickly approaching a time where physical media is going away. People are buying more digital music than physical music. Netflix, which started off as a mail-in DVD rental company, is thought of primarily as a streaming content provider now; they have 26 million subscribers. E-Books outsold Physical Books for the first time this year. That didn’t take very long, considering the first Kindle launched in 2007, and the iPad in 2010.
What does that mean for teachers? At the very least, make your class content available online. I know for a lot of us (myself included) it means taking time to digitize our notes, but it’s worth it if we are able to increase engagement. And do it right: don’t just scan the notes as images. Use OCR or type out the notes so students can download/search them.
Lean into the Change
At least the digital content bit isn’t necessarily a new concept; I was able to download notes as a student. However, accessibility is a huge thing now. Don’t just upload a Word document. You’re students might be on a device that doesn’t support that. Make your notes on a web page when you can, as well as downloadable as a PDF.
Maybe as someone who is passionate about technology, this doesn’t seem like such a huge task for me. But remember- it’s our job as a teachers to try to make the students care, and the best way to do that is to embrace the way they do things. We’re officially in the Post-PC Era. Let’s act accordingly.