Top 5 Things You Should NOT Assume 

Your Students Can Do 

*image created with help from Gemini

"These kids are digital natives." 

"They grew up using technology."

" They know so much more than we do."

"Need help with technology? Ask a kid.:

" They definitely know more about technology than I do. "

These are statements that I hear people utter all the time and those around them just nod as if this is the most well-known fact in the universe. I'm here to tell you it's not true. 

Many kids are comfortable clicking and pressing buttons without fear of breaking the device.They definitely know lots of tricks when it comes to snapchat or tiktok. Ask a group of students to utilize a technology tool for learning and you will most likely be surprised at how little they know and also how unwilling they are to figure it out on their own. I have been compiling a list since the start of the school year of things we should not assume students know how to do.

1. Create And Set Up A Google Form

You will most likely find some students who can get as far as creating one. Most do not understand how to set the response settings, that they need to publish their form, or how to access the spreadsheet with their data. Nor do they understand the various question types and what sort of data will be gleaned from those questions. Likert scale anyone?

2. Create A QR Code

Ok. It's 2026. You do NOT need a QR Code Generator! While you are on the site you want the code to go to, click the three vertical dots in the upper right corner. Click "save, cast, and share" and then choose "create qr code".

3. Move A File From Their Phone To Their Chromebook

This often happens when students are taking photos or getting video footage. They then get frustrated because sharing large files takes a long time and email will time out. Here's how they should do it.

Put the Google drive app on their phone and sign in with their school account. 

Upload from their phone to their school Google drive.

Access Google drive from their chromebooks.

4. How To Search Using Keywords

When you use a search engine, like Google, you will get the best results if you skip the filler words like "the", "to", or "how" and focus on the core nouns and verbs. If you need to find an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the words. If you want to exclude words, put a minus sign directly before a word you want to leave out. (ex. jaguar-car)

5. How To Appropriately Prompt An AI Generative Tool

Want kids to stop copying and pasting your assignment directions into ChatGPT? Let's teach them how to use AI properly. I like the PARTS framework. Persona- define the AI's role, Action-clearly state the task, objective, and action you want the AI to perform. Rules-set boundaries, constraints, negative instructions, or compliance requirements. 

Tools- specify what external sources, data sets, calculators, or other utilities the AI should use. Structure-name the format you want. 

What did I miss? Are there other technology related skills that you have been surprised to learn your students are not able to do? Want some help figuring out how to teach them? Let me know. I'm here to help!