The focus of technology for most students that I teach is to gain an understanding of every aspect of technology and to work towards a master of these understandings. What I mean by this is that most of the students I teach are happy knowing a little about a lot and thus most do not seek to become skilled or proficient in the use of the technology and as a result never reach the mastery of it.

By the time these students reach adulthood they are no longer fulfilled with knowing a little about a lot and instead tend to focus on becoming skilled and proficient in the use of technology. Part of this is due in course to a new level in maturity; well, at least for some.

I agree that students are by no means “expert searchers.” I think that this is because research is a skill that is developed as one goes through school and completes more research. The reason students have difficulty choosing good search terms is because of the amount of information that is available to them. Students can enter very generic terms and still come up with a wealth of information that rivals anything “adults” were able to come up with when they were students by looking in printed text resources. Adults were forced to be selective in what they were looking for and how they would gather the information or else they would not find any information at all. No w, as long as students select terms that loosely fit what they are looking for they will find more information than they will ever need.

The issue that arises for students is with their higher order thinking skills. They are now able to find information easily but they are often unable to determine the relevancy and value in the information they do find. The study found that students are “more impatient,” and require more instant self-gratification which results in the desire to have things now. Therefore, instead of students taking the time to select resources and information carefully they rush to find things promptly to fulfill their need for self-gratification.

The research notes that the analysis of information retrieved from online databases has not “improved over the last 10 to 15 years.” This leads me to believe that the use of technology has resulted in a decrease in the ability for students to evaluate, properly and carefully, the information that they gather. This is obvious to any teacher working with students. However, this inability to evaluate information now stems to printed resources also because the necessary research skills are lacking. The internet and technology is being used as a quick fix to engage students in research and as a result, it is being used incorrectly.

I disagree wit the idea that the shortcomings of students with regards to technology is well known to teachers because if it was then we would be doing something to improve the situation. As such, I think that the most important thing to help student with research is to teach students how to go about research by removing the access they have to technology allowing them to work on their critical thinking skills. I feel that technology, in this case, is simply an added distraction for the students.

This is hard for me to say because I am great supporter for the use of technology as a tool to assist students in learning as well as means to improve student engagement; however, I see the immediate need for this to occur in everyday teaching so that we can improve the information literacy and critical thinking skills of our students so that they can be more successful as adults.

Except for those heavily tied into social software, it’s my hunch that most adults aren’t especially skilled technologically either. It’s more like the commuter’s dumbbell-shaped knowledge of the world between home and a new job: you know around your house, you know a little around the new workplace, and everything else is just the skinny handle of the dumbbell.

So, most working adults (again, my hunch) may use some software — browsers, email, a few other applications — but aren’t blogging, aren’t creating wikis, certainly aren’t programming. So they’re not at high strength at seeing what young people are really doing.

Similarly, those of us familiar with skilled young people have a tendency to mis-extrapolate… but, in my case, a visit to the nearest branch of a county library shows kids using the public-access computers for ordinary purposes. (That’s an observation, not a critique.)

With regards to experience, I see a lot of people who don’t apply thought to use online resources for solving a problem or enhancing a situation. Perhaps for many people, it’s about knowing what is possible. Once you think something should be possible on a computer or on the Internet, then you start to explore and learn.