The “Net Generation:”
Implications for Libraries and
Higher Education
University of Oregon
Library Faculty Meeting
February 1, 2007

• Profile of the “Net Generation”
• The next cohort: What can we expect in
4-5 years?
• Reshaping library services for today’s students
• Implications for redesign of learning spaces
• Questions & Discussion

What is the Net generation, and what are their learning preferences?

Educating the Net Generation
Diana Oblinger
Vice President of EDUCAUSE

• Born in or after 1982
• Gravitate toward group activity
• 8 out of 10 say “it’s cool to be smart”
• Focused on grades and performance
• Busy with extracurricular activities
• Fascination with new technologies
• Racially and ethnically diverse

Saturated with Media
• By 21, average Net-Gen-er
– 10,000 hours video games
– 200,000 emails
– 20,000 hours TV
– 10,000 hours cell phone
– Under 5,000 hours reading
• That is 1/10 the time reading as other media

Net Gen learning styles
• Teams, peer-to-peer
• Engagement & experience
• Visual & kinesthetic
• Demand for immediacy

Student Preferences for levels of instructional
Student in-class preferences
Moderate
IT
40
30
Extensive
IT
Limited IT
20
10
0
No IT Online
―Kvavik, 2004

What should Faculty Do
• Make learning interactive and experiential
• Consider peer-to-peer approaches
• Utilize real-world applications
• Emphasize information literacy in courses
• Mix online and face-to-face
• Encourage reflection
• Create opportunities for synthesis
• Use informal learning opportunities

“Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”
- Marc Prensky, 2001

next

• Kids approx. 15 years old today
• Continuation of the net generation only with increasing intensity.
• Multi-taskers
• Hands on, experiential
• Prefer media rich content
• Gadget and Technology rich
• Savvy Consumers
• Expect quick results
• Think technology is essential to education

• Always doing many things
• Short attention spans
• Developed “hypertext minds”

Hands On, Experiential
• Learn better by discovery
• Doing things much more interesting than listening about things
• Like working in groups and expect group work in courses
• Like interactive exchange
• Never read instructions

• Media saturation results in intuitive visual preference
• High levels of competency in visual / spatial
(for example, gaming)
• Focus on visual and media comes at some expense in text literacy

• Technology is always there and they expect it work
• Ubiquitous access to multiple technologies does NOT translate to being an expert user
• Challenging for IT support organizations – kids have no interest in understanding how things work, they just want them to work
• Can we leverage these gadgets?

• Expect to be able to choose what kind of education they buy as well as what, where and how they learn
• Want choices in most things
• Want to be able to customize everything.

• Want what they want right now
• Part of the whole issue of multitasking
• High demands on service and support organizations

• It is such an important part of our world and embedded in our society, must know how to use it.
• It is helpful and makes things faster
• Helps poor students
• Makes learning about anything anytime easier
• To connect with friends

• Naomi Baron, linguistics professor at American
University thinks parents and educators have created this monster by pandering to them
“at some point, what we are doing is killing higher education”
• Michael Gorman, Dean of Library services at CSU
Fresno and former President of ALA
“this sort of end-of-history approach is dubious to me, this idea that we have reached a watershed and we have to throw everything aside and come in with new approaches”

• Robert Johnson, VP for Information Services at
Rhodes College
“As huge university libraries push aside their books, they are sending a terrible message to their students”.
• Dale Smith, Director of Network Services at the
University of Oregon
“Don’t we have some responsibility to produce literate graduates?”

Roles of Librarians & Information
Professionals
• Observing Changes: Libraries and information services have a front-row seat for seeing students’ learning behaviors
• Faculty Response: “ We mold how they learn”
• The Problem for Us: How do we balance expectations of faculty and students?
Richard Sweeney , University Librarian
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Observations
• Students are awash in information
• The library’s information is harder to get to than the results of a Google search
Solution?
• Work with faculty and through the curriculum to convey to students that there are different kinds of information, some more valuable than others

Observations
Solutions?
• Obstacles to getting • Use technology to information seem break down inexplicable to obstacles whenever students possible
• Anything less than • Indoctrinate full-scale digitization students to the is less than romance of dusty impressive volumes

Teaching about Information Resources
Observations
• Role of librarians unclear to students
• Librarians may not be where the students are, when the students are
• Students may prefer figuring things out themselves, or with peers
Solutions?
• Participate in the curriculum and campus life
• Find ways to be where the students are
• Explore peer-to-peer instructional service models

Enabling Students and Faculty to Use Information Resources
Observations
• Students will use technology for its own sake; not so faculty
• Copying, reusing, and sharing information is easy -especially if it’s digital. But is it legal?
Solutions?
• Technology must enhance the learning experience
• Students and faculty must have a “safe space” for using information

How Would We Like for NetGens to Think of the Library?
• As a source of valuable and readily available information
• As a place equipped for learning and study -both physical and virtual
• As a haven for a community of learners

• No longer a traditional classroom or strictly defined environment
• Can be anywhere that people learn – physical or virtual, classroom or chat room, on-campus or offcampus
• Linked to research on “Information Grounds” -- social settings in which people share everyday information while attending to a focal activity. (Karen Fisher, UW iSchool)

• Students spend more time out of class than in it
• Learning occurs through conversations, web surfing, social interactions
• Mingle, share, make connections
• Spontaneous interactions

• Used to dealing with simultaneous inputs while working
• Different values when it comes to learning
• “Let’s build it” approach
• Collaborative, social creatures
• Almost symbiotic relationship with IT

• Technology is a tool
• Ubiquitous access to technology
• Laptops, tablets, cell phones, iPods, digital cameras, PDAs, etc.
- Devices continue to get smaller, functionality becomes integrated
• Connected any time, any place

• Shift from memorization to understanding
• Constructivist theory:
– Contextual
– Active
– Social
• Problem-based

• Teams
• Peer-to-peer
• Engagement and experience
• Visual and kinesthetic
• Service learning

• Collaborative
• Cooperative
• Supportive
• Active
• Multiple learning paths
• Multiple learning resources

• IM, chat
• Real-time polling devices
• Screen sharing software
• Online quizzes and tutorials
• Media files
• Discussion boards
• E-portfolios
• Web-based file sharing
• Productivity, analysis, and presentation software

Facilities and Equipment
• Café and wireless are almost a given
• Comfortable, inviting environment
• Natural lighting
• Flexible seating
• Tables with space for all the “stuff”
• Accessible, adaptable, integrated facilities

Facilities and Equipment, cont.
• Flexible IT infrastructure and complete IT integration
• Shared screens: smartboards, projectors, LCD panels
• Printing
• Digital media workstations
• Multiple platforms, devices

Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future.
-Niels Bohr

Ideas for
Questions & Discussion
• Where can we find opportunities for collaboration -between libraries; between libraries & other academic support partners?
• How do we make sure we support faculty who want to transition their teaching and curriculum?
•Does having an educated populace benefit society or is a college education a private good for the individual?

Questions & Discussion, continued
•We as service and support organizations have built arcane mechanisms that force the student and faculty to understand history and organizational structure to find help.
What can we do about that?

• The Net and Next Generation kids are used to customization, from cell phone covers, to the look and feel of the PC desktop, to web sites. What should we do to provide a customizable college experience?

Andrew Bonamici bonamici@uoregon.edu