The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released a study regarding "Generations and Their Gadgets." Let's take a quick look at the overall findings and trends. They surveyed about 3,000 adults 18+ about the 'gadgets' they own:* 85% own cell phones. It was 95% in the 18-34 demographic. For the K-12 crowd in favor of classroom cell phone usage, this echoes what you see every day, which is that nearly everyone has a phone, can we leverage it, etc. For the K-12 crowd against phone usage, I suppose we could argue that many aren't full-blown computers and that simply having an item isn't reason enough to mandate its usage as part of the educational process.
* 59% own desktops and 52% own laptops. As expected, the numbers are higher for the younger and, for the 18-34 group, we see more laptops than desktops. This could spark a discussion about desktop vs laptop deployments. If you're a 1:1 district, I could see doing away with labs. However, in the more 'traditional' setting, desktop-based labs still make sense as long as our teaching styles involve students sitting in rows and performing similar tasks. I know that we can argue that the room design is driving the instruction rather than the other way around, but most schools are wired for this setup and I don't see it changing across the board in the near future. You could use this to argue that teachers should use laptops rather than desktops. Some districts are looking into this and I do think the topic is worthy of discussion within your district.
* 74% of the 18-34 group own an iPod or MP3 player. Are we recording lectures and archiving them for download? Should we be? Would it help? I see this as one area where could really make some improvements. The ability to easily record audio and video is there. Anyone can do it. This data shows that many have devices that could be used to listen to a recording. The cost point on these is such that these could be provided to those who do not have them. I suppose loading up an MP3 player with hours of instruction (or posting it online) and having the homebound student download and listen sounds boring and tedious. It is an option, though, and I could probably find some kids who would argue that it's no less boring than their typical school day. :)
* The e-Book and iPad/tablet figures are at about 5% each. This would explain why I'm getting asked about these quite a bit. They are the latest things and bring the potential of electronic textbooks and, for the iPad/tablet category, thousands of apps for educational usage. Each have their downside as well, but the fact that these are even being included on the survey should tell you something.
To me, the generation gap is most telling when you look at the percentage surveyed who state that they have none of these devices. Overall, it was 9%. However, 43% of the age 75+ responders and only 1% of the age 18-34 responders were in this group.
It's an interesting report from an organization that has done some really good surveys over the years. Give it a look and think about what the results might mean for your district.
