Digital Natives @ College: How do Universities Navigate Generational and Technological Shifts?

Mobile phones, social media, cloud computing, crypto currencies – new media and tech have become integral to the everyday experience of digital natives. A generation of high school and college students navigates the breakneck speed of technological change with relative comfort. They are used to gathering information, entertaining, socializing, or working collaboratively by adopting the latest apps, gadgets and virtual platforms.

While universities and colleges continue to be hubs of innovation, where many of these very technologies were invented, their centuries-old libraries and collections, physical classrooms and the occasional overhead projector, seem stand in stark contrast to the everyday experience of this newest cohort of students.

How do universities accommodate the expectations of students for whom digital technology is as familiar as the spiral-bound notebook was to the generation now teaching them? What do curricula look like in an age where job markets require rapidly changing qualifications and highly specialized skill sets? What happens to the culture on and around campuses when digital technologies increasingly shape the college experience?

On Friday, October 4, 2019 from 6-8 pm, experts from Germany and the US will present their approaches and discuss the key issues facing universities today.

Panelists

Dr. Susan Grajek
Vice President Communities and Research, Educause

Prof. Dr. Katie Davis
College of Education, University of Washington

Dr. Volker Meyer-Guckel
Deputy Secretary General, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (invited)

Moderator

Dr. Oliver Schmidt
Executive Director, Fulbright Germany

REGISTER

This event is organized by the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) New York in close collaboration with the German-American Fulbright Commission (Fulbright Germany), Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD) of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft and the German Consulate General New York. It is part of the Educational Experts Seminar 2019, organized by Fulbright Germany and the Stifterverband, which brings together 25 German and American senior leaders from universities and higher education ministries to broach “The Impact of Digitalization on the Future of Higher Education” during a learning journey to Boston, NYC and Berlin.

German Center for Research and Innovation New York