Diana G. Oblinger, Brian L. Hawkins, The Myth about Student Competency: “Our Students Are Technologically Competent”. In: EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 2 (March/April 2006): 12–13 [Gute Bibliographie!]

College and university students today seem so technologically competent. When they wake up in the morning, they don’t turn on the TV to find out about the weather; instead they go to the Web site WeatherBug.com. For news, they use CNN.com, not channel 21. Of course, this is after they check to see what instant messages (IMs) they missed while sleeping. To learn about friends, they turn to Facebook.com. Going online for entertainment is normal for them. Computer games, massively multiplayer games, and music downloads are an assumed part of their environment … And when they want to communicate, sending IMs or text messages is as natural as picking up the phone.

There is no question that students go online before they go to the library; Google has become this generation’s reference desk. Watch just about any college or university student. Whether it is taking pictures with a cell phone, downloading ring tones, searching the Web for information, or contributing to Wikipedia or a blog, today’s students seem to have no hesitation about using technology. This is what we’ve come to expect from a generation that has never known life without the Internet.

… But are students competent or just confident? Having no fear is not the same as having knowledge or skill. … But the impression of broad competence slips when percentages are revealed for use of other applications, such as those for presentation development (65%), spreadsheets (63%), graphics (49%), or creating Web pages (25%). Using a variety of applications is just one possible definition of IT competency.

Perhaps a more important question is, what is IT being used for? From the perspective of a college or university, learning must be part of that answer—learning that will continue well past graduation. Part of a college or university’s charge is to prepare students not only for today but also for tomorrow. ...

Information literacy is much more than knowing how to open a Web browser and type a search term into Google. Information literacy is the ability to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, and use that information effectively. Moreover, information literacy is not just a skill required in college; there is “a lifelong need for being informed and up-to-date. …”