Gary Stager, in a few recent posts, has been stirring the pot by confronting some popular “Web 2.0″ ideas, like the digital immigrants/digital natives divide, the concept of the flat world, and the latest Michael Wesch video. Ultimately, Stager is serving as the voice of caution, warning pro-tech educators not to become enamored with the tech or sloppy with the thinking, and I appreciate any voice that makes me stop, think, and reconsider.
I’ve been really interested in what the Digital Ethnography Working Group is doing and think there’s some good, helpful thinking going on there. I’m not saying any one video is completely “right” or revolutionary, but the project as a whole is important.
What I’m interested in for this post is a point that came up repeatedly in the exchanges around Stager’s post: that students aren’t as “native” or as skilled as we often assume they are.
On Stager’s post addressing the immigrant/native idea, “James and Tom” comment:
If you want to quickly disprove the idea of “digital natives” visit a school with a 1:1 laptop program and test the basic skills of 100 students. You’ll find about 20 who can barely enter text, let alone create folders or know where their saved documents will end up. On the other hand you might have one or two who are at the upper end in terms of skills. Most sit in the middle with basic knowledge. [emphasis added]
And in a response to what he calls “misreadings” of the video, Michael Wesch raises the same point:
The great myth is that these “digital natives” know more about this new information environment than we do. But here’s the reality: they may be experts in entertaining themselves online, but they know almost nothing about educating themselves online. They may be learning about this digital information environment despite us, but they are not reaching the levels of understanding that are necessary as this digital information environment becomes increasingly pervasive in all of our lives. [emphasis added]
My own experience supports both of these assertions, and I think they’re important points to remember, particularly for teachers who plan to start “working with” technology in their classrooms. Many students are quite capable when manipulating aspects of technology they find entertaining, but if pushed outside that realm, they often lack even basic skills and usually lack the ability to think critically about the technology or the content it delivers. This means that it’s our job, as educators, to push them outside of that realm and help them find success working there … which implies we first need to be there ourselves.
Yesterday, during my freshman comp course, my students provided two examples.
Before class started, one student gave an exasperated sigh from where she sat in front of her computer, did some quick typing and clicking, and then settled back into her chair.
Her friend asked, “They block it again?”
She responded, “When are they gonna learn we get around it as soon as they change it?”
They were talking about internet filters for Facebook.
However, during the lesson, I was showing them how to format their papers according to MLA style using Word. The sounds of shock and amazement at simple actions, like increasing the indent or inserting a header, were clear indications that they hadn’t been asked to work with a word processor for academic purposes and certainly weren’t doing so on their own.
If that’s the case for an “ancient” tool like the word processor, imagine the implications for wikis, blogs, and social networks. And that’s just the basic skills. Wanna lay odds on how much thought they’ve put into the effective and ethical use of those tools? How about moving beyond the tool and returning to critical analysis of the content, the interplay between content and form, or the connections to any content created more than five years ago?
Would your odds change for teachers?
Fri, Nov 9, 2007
Education