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Why are students less than impressed with professors’ edtech skills? Could it be that we are using the wrong digital tools?

Call them the gamer generation, millennials, or digital natives, but computer-savvy (or at the very least, connected and techno-curious) kids in higher educational classrooms today use, and expect their profs to use, digital technology to communicate and teach. And for the most part, they are underwhelmed with the low levels of edtech uptake and digital literacy of their profs. The feeling goes both ways of course, professors claiming that, beyond facebook and texting, students are not digital wizards with mad skillz, far from it in fact, despite many claims to the contrary.

When students were polled in a national survey last fall, almost half said that their profs do not seem to understand how to use technology. Not surprisingly, as is often the case, the faculty disagree with student perceptions. In the same survey, two-thirds of profs self-report they are satisfied with their level of personal tech knowledge. If they are not using it in the classroom however, we know why: most likely it’s the oft-repeated mantra no funds, no time, and no campus tech support—though many edtech types think these are just as likely to be excuses as real obstacles to classroom adoption.

But wait: in the survey cited above, three quarters of the profs surveyed claim they DO use edtech in every class. So we’re using it, but either not well enough to meet student expectations, or maybe we’re using the “wrong” tech to satisfy student’s learning needs?

What these discrepancies point to is what Henry Jenkins, Danah Boyd and others call the digital technology participation gap that emerges between generations. It’s another approach to understanding the digital divides that separate cohorts, classes, and demos. If you’re interested in learning more, check out this great slideshare presentation on the skills required for kids (well, all of us really) to learn in a participatory digital culture. Basically, students and teachers have potentially different skill sets, but more importantly, we’re at the point where it seems apparent that we prefer different kinds of technologies to learn, communicate, create, connect, and participate in culture.

What kind of technoteaching do students want? Or do we have to teach naked?!

We know what they do NOT want: more bad powerpoint. Not a surprise. Often repeated, death-by-powerpoint is by now part of our cultural idiom. Still, presentations read aloud word-for-word directly from text-heavy, clip-art accented slide decks are business-as-usual in classrooms and at conferences. But we are now at the point where the widespread aversion to powerpoint is far more serious than aesthetically offensive information and bad graphic design. In fact this issue was the inspiration for the controversial and convoluted, much-misunderstood “teach naked” initiative last year.

As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, a study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students were so bored by their dull powerpointy lectures that it was interfering with their ability to focus and learn. Southern Methodist University Dean José A. Bowen, of teach naked fame, was actually advocating booting powerpoint from the lecture hall, shifting to more interactive discussions during face-to-face meetings, and use of podcasts for lecture delivery—in others words, profs on demand (POD). Teaching naked is essentially about teaching POD style–or as one journalist put it, “having a professor in your pocket.”

Enter the pocketprof. I know, that sounds ridiculous.

Students like lecture capture technology, and not just because it means they don’t have to go to class. For visual learners, for ESL students, for special-needs, for busy schedules, for exam cramming, a course that comes packaged with audio-video digital assets can be a bonus. This is most especially true if the podcasts are truly value-added features, not intended to wholly replace the prof, the P2P discussions, the lecture presentation.

Schools and individual profs (myself included) are using coursecasting technology for online learning and in blended classes, as a complement to face-to-face instruction. Early adopters at York University, Carleton and Mount Allison reported that student engagement was up considerably when they put their lectures online in audio or video format. Instead of acting as a deterrent to attending class, the podcasts have lead to more student involvement. “My average student watches 120 percent of the lectures,” says one professor at Carleton, “so, most likely students come to lectures and review lectures, or do a combination of coming to lectures, watching them on TV and watching them on their iPods.” This is on-demand learning.

Still not sure if you want to be a podcaster? Consider watching a few of your colleagues’ videos (here and here) and get in touch with them about how they are using this technology. For presentation inspiration, check out the TED talks and Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen site.

Beyond video, students like social media.

Students like social media and they know how to use it. Those pre-existing skills can be leveraged for formal learning outcomes–and by pushing them to develop social media skills we better prepare them for professional careers. This also helps to better align the world of the classroom and the world off-campus—making courses more connected and perhaps even more socially relevant.

The walled garden approach to social media (like course management systems, closed wikis, and members-only groups and Nings) provides focus and privacy, and yet it’s only one option to teaching socially. More faculty are using free open online tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, iTunesU and YouTube to get students connecting, creating and sharing online. Still controversial but it’s catching on and will continue to do so, as long as online, open source and/or free tools are more accessible, feature-rich, and/or cost-effective than what campus IT spend allows.

Avoiding instaprof virtual assistant FX.

However, teaching with social media communication tools is a gamechanger in many ways, including accelerating the circuits of connectivity, feedback loops, and response-time. Brad Stone writing in The New York Times describes “mini-generation gaps” emerging between teachers and their students on the real-time web. Increasingly, classes expect “their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately.” This is not exactly new—the introduction of campus-wide email over a decade ago had a similar effect on faculty-student communications.

But the velocity of an instant-messaging, status-updating, twitter-trending, and now location-aware and mobile digital culture is shifting communications and connectivity habits on campus. The connected cohort quickly gets accustomed to having access to instantaneous information—and certainly that means they want all-access profs. The instaprof becomes a virtual assistant: always-on, responsive in real-time, on-demand. Some profs are already always online, so student messaging is often non-intrusive, and becomes less of an issue. I count myself as one of those types, but so (it seems) do many other profs.

Action items for teachers contemplating adoption of more social media technologies who do not aspire to be 24/7 instaprof VAs? Set clear expectations about your online availability. Partition or designate aspects of your online presence to separate professional from personal profile accessibility, if desired. Collaborate with peers or students to design a dynamic set of social media guidelines—wikified. Plan to tackle the issue of insatiable instantaneity in digital culture head on in lecture or discussion. Rotate student monitors/managers on the branded channels for your social media course tools (FB group/Twitter feed, blog)—and as a bonus students walk away with more tech design skills and digital literacies.

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