I often hear teachers talk about the "kids today" and how computer savvy they are; it seems like whenever there's a teacher that needs some tech. assistance, there's a capable student willing to help. In my experience, however, there are just as many kids incapable of performing what might now be considered basic computer skills, and when you narrow the field to capable Web 2.0 students, the numbers drop again.
I think that teachers group all students as capable for a couple of reasons: the idea that there's always a student who can help might lead to the assumption that all students can help; teachers make assumptions about the ubiquitous technological capacities of students based on a small -- and willing -- sample set. The assumption that all students have glowing computer skills also lets teachers off the hook: "I don't need to teach them anything about computers: they know it all."
While it's fair to say that most students are capable of setting up a Facebook account and doing a Google search, I think that we need to take responsibility, as teachers, for expanding and refining the Web 2.0 skill sets that will lead these kids to successful futures.
More studies, such as the revealing, recent PEW Survey, may help us to get a handle on just what Web 2.0 tools most kids use and don't use, and thus let us make better choices -- and fewer assumptions -- about what we need to teach and what we don't.
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I'm in love with web 2.0 and believe it's important to get students involved online with creating interactive products such as blogs, wikis, voicethreads, and glogster posters, especially when they also have the ability to respond to others' creations. But when we push web 2.0 tools by skipping a step -- without starting with the basics -- I think we miss a huge target.
You are absolutely correct that students often know how to entertain themselves with computers, but have no idea how to use them efficiently as learning or productivity tools. We cannot assume they know how to conduct a careful search, for example, if they haven't been taught how to evaluate online sources or judge credibility of website creators/sponsors.
Many K-12 students also have never been taught the basics they will need in most workplaces and in college: how to format text in a word processing program, for example, or to produce a slide presentation that isn't over-bulleted and jammed with boring text. Although such skills are admittedly mundane and web 2.0 is more cutting edge, basic computer skills cannot be continually ignored as if someone else along the way will take care of it or as if the students will learn it somehow via osmosis.
Who's going to teach them these skills? Will we leave it to universities? Will employers need to do it? If a student can't produce a correctly formatted written document, no amount of voicethreads or glogster posters are going to impress many employers enough to overlook that deficit.
Teachers, please, take some of your computer lab time to teach the basics! Don't assume the students will learn it elsewhere!
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