Young people grow up with technology and just naturally can manipulate it with out any instructions. FALSE! The only tools I have found that students naturally use are chat features. Chats are social and just a text message thread for them and they love to use them.

by Photo Extremist

To students email is a service that gives you an address so you can sign up for Facebook. If I have my students log into their email account they undoubtedly have hundreds of unread messages, mostly from Facebook. They do not know how to send something as an attachment or download one that  they receive.

Naming and saving files and actually remembering where they put them is like trying to find something in their locker. They know it’s in there but have no idea where or how to find it. Never have them create their own passwords, unless you want to spend lots of time creating new accounts.

We tried using Camtasia Studio to record screencasts from multiple sources and combine into one interesting video. Students had to be shown individually how to do everything even after multiple class demonstrations.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with the students. They are just middle schoolers who are often unorganized in real life and online. Before computers they lost papers and forgot things too.They just have not had a reason to use these tools or think in these ways before. But they are definitely NOT digital natives and I’m ok with that. I’m a teacher. Helping students learn is what I do.