Review by: Rapetti, Emanuele (2009-06-10)

The aim of the book is to provide a short and concise description of the “Net Generation” (NetGen), in order to better design learning experiences for today's students. It appears as a first-aid manual to higher education professional. In 165 pages the authors point out all the necessary information about this hot topic.

Overview

• Chapters 1 & 2 introduce the topic and present an essencial literature review about the main characteristics of the Net Gen.
• Chapters 3, 4, 5 & 6 present the problem, closely linking it to the US situation: starting out from the results of research done in the field – amongst it a survey done by the authors -, they describe how NetGen people work and learn at university, as well as in their workplace.
• Chapters 7 & 8 are meant to advise education professionals, concerning both didactical needs of NetGen and cultural-pedagogical attentions.
• Chapter 9 ends the manual, underlining the most critical and urgent outcomes of the whole book.

The Net generation problem

The book – particularly in chapter 1, but selectively in the whole text – addresses the problem of how to integrate the educational requirements of people born from the 1980ies onwards in the didactics of higher education institutions. This issue has become more and more pressing, from when Prensky (2001) stated the existence of the so-called “digital natives” and showed their cognitive characteristics. Put brief, digital natives are presumed to think and learn in a different way – compared to “digital immigrants” – because they have grown up in a socio-cultural context full of media, particularly stressing the added value of the use of videogames to improve the learning attitude (here it has to be kept in mind that Prensky also works as videogame consultant).

A number of studies have tried to point out who digital natives are and how they are, inventing many (sometimes really poor) labels. Besides Prensky the book draws heavily on the ideas of Howe & Strauss (1991) who proposed an historico-cultural interpretation of US history: in their very famous book Generations: the history of America's future, 1584 to 2069, they explained that after the “Generation X” arrives the “Generation Y” (or “Millennials”); after a period of nihilism and socio-political indifference typical of the "MTV people" (the adults in the Eighties and Nineties), GenY people are re-discovering their grandparents' attitudes and values. Computers and videogames arrived when GenY people were children and they all grew up in houses with TV, radio, telephone, etc.

Learning and the Net Generation

Like most publications on this topic, the book is founded on research done in the US. Focusing on the US situation, chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 show the most relevant results concerning the learning attitudes in using ICT: which technologies are used the most, how these influence student development and learning practices, and how being a member of the NetGen impacts on career and workplace issues. Consequently, chapters 7 and 8 are meant to advise faculty about how to consider the emerging characteristic of NetGen people, customizing their didactics and pedagogy ad hoc. It is underlined that more people than ever before are going to university and that nowadays students face a multitude of social/educative/economic opportunities. These points, according to the authors, should be considered when developing learning designs that aim at considering the cultural challenges implicated by the condition of digital natives.

The main idea promoted in the book is that is necessary to stay culturally and anthropologically in touch with the NetGen attitude. First of all, educators need to stay up-to-date on the constantly evolving technology. From this point, it results that, for example: educators are required to manage a great deal of contact with students; NetGeners ask to be helped a lot by authority and, sometimes, to be directly led in learning processes; the advising dynamics should fit with the technological-world in which students live; teaching and learning must consider the NetGen students' expection to access services and faculty members immediately using technology; it is important to provide accurate and consistent information using different modalities.

Conclusions

The main reason to read this book is to get a clear and fast overview about the characteristics of NetGen people, particularly concerning their social and cognitive characteristics. Most of these points are drawn from Howe & Strauss, integrated with some researches results. The following is the foundation for the advice shown above. Surely, this is an interesting text, easy to read and well-focused on this hot topic. Maybe, it should be read in comparison to another book on the subject: Born Digital (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008), with a more narrative style.

However, it does not become evident, whether it really addresses this generation's educational needs to provide a “digital university” and to customize all the cultural instance of "bildung" on their “digital” socio-cognitive characteristics, only because they grew up in a “digital” world structured on “digital” dynamics. History will tell if all what is said in these years about NetGen is a pedagogically and anthropologically well-founded interpretation or if we have been charmed by ICT in learning and cognitive dynamics.