Gen Z students are digital natives. They were using iPads before they could write, and they snap, tweet, text, and swipe faster than most institutional staff members can decide what to write. But could higher education institutions be making the dangerous assumption that digital natives are naturally digitally literate?

Welcome to the digital skills gap: where students enter the workforce without the ability to use and deploy technology to meet work-related goals. Despite billions of dollars being poured into educational technology, studies find that much of the digital literacy training in higher education only requires students to consume and evaluate information and media rather than create it using digital resources. Especially considering the level of transformation and automation taking place in the workforce, this lack of skills application is a fundamental challenge that universities need to address by working with a digital literacy partner like Adobe. Adobe Creative Cloud provides the tools to help students communicate their ideas, projects, research findings and more in digitally compelling ways. Everyone needs to be a good digital storyteller, no matter what their discipline.