TECHNOLOGY AND THE YOUTH OF THE GENERATION Z A CASE STUDY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS AT A LAW SCHOOL

This article belongs to a study to portray the university students of the generation Z, particularly those who did not follow technological courses. The widespread idea que these young people are experts in technology may not be correct. Digital natives live surrounded by technology, use technology to communicate and to have fun, but many of them show a lack of knowledge of some tools, including MsOffice. These tools prove to be essential during their academic life and their future working life. This article presents results from two surveys: the initial investigation on computer equipment possessed, social networks used, kind of applications access, knowledge of MsOffice tools; the second survey on MsOffice tools, was completed at the end of the course, in which were not taught but were necessary for the final work preparation and presentation. In Portugal there is a curriculum in secondary education but not all students were included. What we want is to know the knowledge that students have when they go to university and the knowledge they need to have to go to the labor market.


THE STUDY/PROBLEM
The digital natives [1] live surrounded by technology: they use technology to communicate and to have fun. They were born in a time where the internet already existed, for them it's usual to browse the web, it's a part of their life. They're element of the generation Z [2], which is a designation used to address young people born in the 90's, who "zap" between various devices and electronics apps. The letter Z comes from the term "to zap", the action to constantly change the TV channel, much like this generation is in life: with various tasks at the same time and always changing interests. Many studies have been made and they all point to a large use of digital devices, namely the cell phone, the laptops, the iPads, and much like a series of ultra-sophisticated gaming consoles. Social networks are used by all young people: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and a series of other apps are used by young people all over the world. Actually this generation is really different from former generations, which, by being digital immigrants, don't use technology so innately. But the widespread idea that 18-year-olds are experts in technology might not be the most correct: what if we talk about some "serious work"? Would a college freshman know how to use MsWord correctly? I'm not talking about creating a document, changing the font, writing, recording and printing. Any child is almost born knowing how to use a text processer. I'm talking about using well, using the functionalities that MsWord provides. Would a freshman know how to use functionalities such as the creation of an automatic index, a cross reference, captioning a figure or inserting a new font for a quote? Would the freshman know what slide master of MsPowerPoint is or does he alter the configuration of each one of the slides whenever he does school presentations? Is MsExcel a useful tool or just an app where you put numbers, much like in battleship? I have 22 years of experience in college education and in the area of informatics. Many times I lection other courses, namely Law. By what I have been seeing, many students get to college with very little competencies in terms of MsOffice, a tool which they'll have to use in the following years. The advantage is that after taught they'll learn fast because they have easiness with the use of technology. The disadvantage is that if they don't know how to properly use that functionality, they'll probably try to do it wrongly: "zapping" between the various possibilities, not doing correctly. In the last school year I teach technological courses (memories, emerging technologies, disruptive and so on) on a curricular unit to first year students of law. In the beginning I asked them to fill an inquiry about what computer hardware they possessed, which social networks they used, what type of apps they accessed, if they knew how to use some functionalities of MsOffice. It was a way to picture the students. One of this discipline's evaluation items consisted in a work about an emerging technology of their choosing. The work for evaluation consisted in a document in MsWord and the respective presentation in MsPowerPoint or Prezi. There was a guide that they had to follow, describing, namely, the elements which had to appear in the cover, the bibliographical references, the various indexes, information that all images had to be captioned and labeled, just like other requisites. The students sent in the work through MOODLE and did the presentation in the due date. In that day, and after the presentation and discussion of the work, they were asked to answer an inquiry. 56 students answered. Purposely, the answers were only given after the presentation of the work, since that, in that phase, they had already discovered their difficulties. Also because the work featured many requisites that many of them didn't do automatically. And in the discussion I insisted in telling them that. In Portugal there's a curriculum in high school but not all students were contemplated. And, many times, that which is taught in those high school disciplines is linked with internet, blogs or sites. It looks like the tools of MsOffice are a poor relative of technology, when in truth they are powerful means of work (and not only!). This document shows the results of that inquiry and does some recommendations about which are the competences that a student should have before he gets to College, or, in case that that's not possible, what are the competences that a College should give to the students which sign up for the first time.

THE INQUIRIES
Both inquiries were answered with Google Drive, being the link put on the MOODLE platform which was available for students which that these students were motivated to work with. The inquiries were anonymous for obvious reasons, however it was asked that the student number was filled to verify if no student did more than one inquiry and to join with the initial inquiry where were there were other information, which could be useful. To the initial inquiry answered 217 students from various courses. However we'll only take away the students in Law: 117 students. 4 answers of 26-years-olds were taken away, because they weren't classified as Generation Z anymore. In this first inquiry it was asked: a) If yes: were those disciplines useful? How? To the final inquiry responded 56 students, all from the course of Law, 3 answers were outed by three students who were born before the 90's since we pretended to study the generation born in that decade. In this second inquiry it was asked:

INITIAL INQUIRY
This curricular unit had 553 students signed, from which 217 responded to the initial inquiry. On this article we only consider students from the course of Law: 137 were signed, from which 117 answered to the inquiry (85.4%). How our study pretends to address the students born in the 90's (Generation Z), we take away four: born in 1971, 1981, 1985 and 1989. By which we stand with 113 students in this first inquiry. By those means: the age average was 20, like students born in 1996. Just 22.12% of the students who answered the inquiry were masculine.  When asked to classify by fondness and interest for technology, along with technological dexterity, being the scale from 1 (nothing) to 5 (much), ten students answered to the three items with a 5, none of them answering to the same three items. The average was close to 4.   Relatively to MsPowerPoint, 75 students (66%) said they knew how to do temporizations, animations, using slide master and transitions. Just one student (0.9%) said he didn't know how to use any of the items. 46 students (41%) said they regularly used digital libraries, Wikipedia and Google. Just one student (0.9%) said that he didn't use any of these tools regularly. For 30 students (27%), the Web usually serves social networks, newspapers, digital libraries, games and e-mail. All students said they used e-mail.  When asked to classify their motivation for learning on Information Technologies, being the scale from 1 (nothing) to 5 (much), we obtained average of 3.94, 33 students (29%) answering that they felt really motivated and 2 not motivated.

Yes No
Had some informatics discipline in high school 47 66

FINAL INQUIRY
To the final inquiry answered 56 students, all from the course of Law. Three answers were taken away, from students born in 1971, 1981 and 1986 since we intended to study the generation born in the 90's. About the birth years: 11 students were born in 1994, 15 students in 1995 and other 17 in 1996. The average was near 20 years. About the genders, 37 were feminine and 16 masculine.  ,00 Relatively to knowledge on MsExcel, there was just positive answer to over half of the for the creation of graphics. More than half of the students answered that they didn't know how to insert formulas/functions, using filters and doing ordinations. Just 5 students (9%) answered being capable of using these four functionalities on MsExcel and fifteen (28%) said not knowing how to use any. About MsPowerPoint knowledge, 28 students (53%) answered that they knew how to do temporizations, animations, using the slide master and transitions and none answered no to these four items. On the question "Do you think you should have had lessons about Word / Prezi and other tools in the beginning of the semester?" 44 students (86%) answered affirmatively, while 7 (14%) answered that they didn't think it was necessary.
The answer is yes, we obtained the following answers: think we should have lessons on Word because I thinks it's an important (practical) part to realize works/reports. It would be a help for academic works. For us to use better these programs for the works for the different disciplines. Because it's important to know how to structure works properly and knowing how to do bibliographical references. Working with Word and Prezi is very useful, not only for academic and professional life but for personal life, too. Once they're the tools that we'll accompany throughout our academic and professional lives. Because they're tools necessary for our course and for our future professional; they better significantly the performance of our tools. Most students have little basis facing these tools and it would be very useful for our academic course and for our professional lives; so that my works can be bettered.; Yes, aiming to upgrade the quality of presented works.; because, for example, on word, great part of students doesn't know much more than the basics.; Without a doubt it will be very useful for future works and presentations throughout 1 st cycle degree, as well as on the job market, since today every and any company, independently from its area of action, functions "risk-free", resorting to market studies, business studies and niche target population studies..; Because it's a new way to evolve students' works, since you have more knowledge!; Relatively to Word, we should better the competences to resolve a work, structure-wise.; I think Prezi is a good tool to create a more diversified work.; I believe that other tools that might be considered interesting and functional for the realization of the course and for the future might be considered and advantage.

CONCLUSION OF THE TWO INQUIRIES
As for fondness and interest, as for technological dexterity, the scale being 1 (nothing) to 5 (much), the average got near 4, which reveals that students are interested and want to use technology. The 5 students who answered 1 or 2 to fondness and to interest for technology were from the feminine gender, only 1 element of the masculine gender answering 1 to the technological dexterity item, as for 10 elements of the feminine gender replied with level 2. Two of the students who answered 1 or 2 to the item of technological dexterity had a discipline of technology in high school. There's a great usage of tools such as Facebook (87%), Gmail (83%), YouTube (78%), Instagram (65%) and Snapchat (62%). Relatively to MsWord, the percentage of students who say that they know how to use the functionalities is similar in both inquiries: Cross-reference 25% 36% On behalf of curiosity, it's verified that of the 41 students who answered to both inquiries there's a little difference when talking about MsWord knowledge, verifying that 22 students who said that they knew how to use Cross-reference passed to say that they did not, while 6 students who initially had affirmed that they didn't know how to use sections, on the second inquiry said they didn't. The answers about the knowledge of MsExcel were very similar in both inquiries, which doesn't admire us since the work meanwhile realized could not have any contact with MsExcel. There's no significate answer changes in the group of students who answered both inquiries: just 6 just students start saying that they know how to use filters. There's no significate change of answers relatively to the students who answered to both inquiries: just 7 students started saying that they didn't know how to use slide master. Using slide master 59% 17% 10% 15% Transitions 80% 10% 7% 2% We don't find relation between having had a technology discipline in high school and the three tools of MsOffice in question. We didn't find a relation between possessions of equipment with that knowledge, either.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS
With this article we can verify that the students of the course of Law of 2014-2015 who responded to the inquiries have, generally, fondness, interest and technological dexterity. An average of 3.9 points in 5 about the motivation for the use of technology was obtained. That the most part of the students who answered have an account on Facebook (87%), Gmail (83%), YouTube (78%), Instagram (65%), and Snapchat (62%). That on the tools of MsOffice students still show some adversities. On MsWord, creating and using sections and utilizing cross-reference. After the work presentation, a large part of the student basis changed some of their answers when questioned about MsWord. The questioned students have very little knowledge about MsExcel, knowing only how to create graphics, while most don't know formulas/functions, filters and ordinations. The students said they knew how to use MsPowerPoint, although many of them didn't know use slide master. 96% of students have their own laptop, all have email and only 1 student said he didn't use Google. 58% of students didn't have any technological discipline in high school. In the end of the semester, the question "Do you think you should have had lessons about Word / Prezi and other tools in the beginning of the semester?" 44 students (86%) answers yes.
It can clearly be understood that the young people from the Generation Z join College with a lot of usage of technologies, but with little knowledge of MsOffice. Is it needed to offer these competences to students so that they can do their academic work and to know how to use them in future working life?