Tag: generations

I had my educational psychology class complete a short in-class writing assignment related to the topic of working memory and multi-tasking. I originally had no specific motive beyond getting them to apply some of these ideas to their own experiences and so I asked them to write about listening to music while they studied. There were some specific prompts, but this was the general topic. I have read so many who claim younger folks are multi-taskers and prefer this or that environment for learning that I guess I was somewhat surprised with how the students responded.

After reading the responses, I created a simple way to organize what I thought each student had said and I came up with this distribution. If one combines the students who say they listen to no music with those who say they use music to mask out other sounds, it would be pretty difficult to argue these students must multi-task.

I did encounter some interesting comments regarding musical tastes (what works while studying) and when music is helpful and when not. Avoid popular music with lyrics (one student claimed to listen to game tracks). Music while writing and working problem sets (math, chemistry) seems workable, but do not try to listen to music while reading.

Of course, there were some who say they listen to music constantly, but the point is these individuals were not typical. Sometimes I wonder about the methodology used by those who attempt to make the case that learners are changing and educators need to take notice and make adjustments. What I did was quite informal as far as research goes and not really designed to test formal hypotheses, but the typical student in this group is not a multi-tasker.

I have been thinking about the digital native / digital immigrant distinction and what about this dichotomy is assumed to be meaningful. As I understand the distinction, the difference is whether one has known “life without”. So if you were unaware of the world around you without Google, cell phones, or computers, you are a native. And, if you can remember punch cards or punch tape, coding in assembly, or waiting for your batch job to be run, you must be an immigrant. Actually, I am being a bit facetious. If you were alive and cognizant before the Internet, computers, cell phones, etc., you come to these devices and services unnaturally and are an immigrant.

It is kind of unclear whether this distinction is about positive or negative differences. Or, perhaps the the distinction proposes a combination of differences. As a distinction  proposed as relevant to educators, how this difference is understood really matters. Unless we are assuming that all differences are positive, I reject the notion that educational practices MUST be adapted to suit the interests and aptitudes of natives. When a difference is negative, I think the appropriate response is to determine whether the capability can be developed or not, and if change is possible focus on improvement.

The simplistic distinction of “did you experience life without” misses many significant qualifications. If you have been there from the beginning, you have several important “context advantages”. You better understand how things work. Some think you do not have to know. For example, I do not have to understand fuel injection to drive a car. True enough. But, I do think having a broad background has advantages. I remember attempting to explain HTML tags to educators who seemed to be baffled by the notion of a “markup language”. I realized that my background offered a perspective they did not have. I did markup on a key punch machine when I wrote my dissertation. I was familiar with markup because I remembered word processing programs in which the markup would appear (bold, underline) as part of the text. Adding tags around text was not foreign in this new setting. It was part of using technology.

I think there is a more important aspect of context and that involves technology within culture. If one experiences the gradual integration of technology in various forms, one also can observe how we all have accommodated such tools into our lives. We have a sense of the inter-relationship between human behavior and technology. Often, we see trends that result in unanticipated negative consequences. I do not assume that sitting each evening staring at a big screen is the way life has to be. It does not seem rebellious to me that some young parents are concerned that their children need some alternatives. I understand that there are options. I understand such options as a native not as an immigrant. I do not have to learn about such alternatives to understand.

So, in keeping with this perspective, I offer some new phrases to describe the awareness of digital natives. If you want, I am collecting other descriptive phrases. My present list includes:

Late to the party
Better late than never
This is all magic to me.

I picked this topic up from a post by Will Richardson. He passes on a request from an Edutopia writer asking for student input on how teachers should use technology in classrooms. The post then goes on to outline some examples that are very much in keeping with a view promoting student multimedia authoring. I always interpret this approach as proposing that teachers are out of touch with the needs and interests of their students.

Here is my concern with such an approach. It really concerns me what one might say from such input. Will it offer insights into what a typical student would like to experience as a learning experience and what a typical student would be prepared to implement as a learning project.

Two quick examples:

1) I teach educational psychology to undergraduates and some in this class are future teachers. These are both students who have opinions about how they should be taught and students who will soon be teachers. I am in the middle of a simple cooperative project in which students within a pair write on a designated topic and then send this material to their partner who analyzes the content using a technique I provide and then returns the results to the writer. Simply put, the project uses some very basic technology skills – prepare a document and save in RTF format, send as an attachment. I ask them to save a document in rtf format because students use different word processing programs and use word processing programs of different vintages. You would think I am asking them to code in C++. Many cannot understand my explanation of why requiring a common format might be important and many cannot figure out how to send an attachment. Often my instruction are ignored, some just send the file as it is saved and let their partner deal with it and some cut and paste into the email they send. In the same class, I have a computer science major and we talk about open source software. A translation program others could use was recommended.

If I was to inform other college profs on student interest in cooperative email projects in large lecture courses, do you think I should forward the student who recommends a format translation program as a prod to change their methods of teaching?

2) When I was a kid, I received a printing press as a Christmas present. I wanted this printing press very badly. Once I had it, I discovered that it did not come with enough letters (the rubber type you used to prepare your content for printing). I saved my money and bought more, but I also had to resort to tactics such as substituting 1s for ls.

I remember I created a sports page. I would write an account of the week’s playground softball games and I would include the pro baseball standings in the final document. Writing was challenging – I had to limit what I said to the type I had available. Probably good preparation for Twitter. I would take the pages i produced to school and distribute to my classmates. Circulation of about a dozen or so if I remember correctly.

I am the only kid I know who had a printing press, but I bet I would have been the kid my teacher would volunteer as an example of student authoring.

One of the long-term problems I have with the approach taken by many reform advocates is that they seize on the interests and capabilities of a few to argue for change for others. I wish the capabilities of digital natives were as advertised. I have been waiting for this group to show up in my college classes for several years now. I am thinking they must only enroll in colleges on the east coast.

Don’t get me wrong, I am an advocate of the participatory web and the potential of these tools and tactics for learners. However, I think we must work with students to develop necessary tool skills and apply these capabilities in productive ways. The interests and skills of some are and have always been unrepresentative.

The MacArthur Foundation has released the comprehensive results of multiple ethnographic studies describing and evaluating adolescent use of technology. In total, the report is quite positive and indicates that adolescents make productive use of the Internet and technology devices for personal learning and in what the report describes as “friendship-driven” social activities.

While the focus of the report ignores within-school, curriculum based learning, the generally positive take on what individuals of this age range do with technology should offer a challenge to administrators concerned that they must filter within the school.

Summary pdf

Some may see this as offering a message to those in traditional schools. Perhaps. However, it seems fair to ask if the expectations of a comprehensive curriculum can be based on what may have always been true about the commitment we all make to our hobbies and personal interests? With the exception of the commitment of a far larger proportion of a group to similar activities but not necessarily similar goals, I am not certain I see that a demonstration of personal, self-regulated learning as a novel revelation. What about understanding this research as a message to parents?

I see Marshall Kirkpatrick, writing on the ReadWriteWeb, offers some similar observations.

In general, I think that the distinction between those who grow up with technology and those who have discovered technology after first learning to relate to their world is other ways is not that important. For me, there is a great difference between skill and perspective. I accept the reality that younger folks have a different perspective than I – some specific uses of technology are all they have known. Sometimes those with a different perspective can take advantage of the awareness of change to understand things on a deeper level and to develop greater skill. The acceptance of “this is the way the world is” is far from equivalent to understanding why the world is this way.

My oldest granddaughter, a digital native, contacted me via interactive video this morning to let me know she had made a jack-o-lantern. In my head, the carving of a pumpkin seemed pretty risky for such a young child, but it turns out she has pasted pieces of colored paper on a plastic milk jug.

This is the time of the semester when students in my educational psychology class are studying basic human cognition. When I teach this and other topics I, personally and for my class, attempt to relate the topic to issues I read about or see around me. So, as I consider the issue of the limited capacity of working memory and memory overload, I ask what students think about the multitasking capabilities that are commonly associated with K-16 students. Did anything they read in the book explain how talking on the phone, listening to music, and keeping a couple of chats active while reading a textbook could possibly be acceptable? I keep waiting for the experts who write the textbooks I use in educational psychology to update their books to explain the new capabilities of 21st century learners. So far, no luck. Perhaps the authors pay more attention to the research literature than the blogs claiming we must adapt to the new skills of those in our classrooms.

I was listening to an NPR story on multitasking while driving to work this morning. The piece involved an interview with a scientist with a research program related to the popularity of engaging in online communication while doing other things (e.g., driving). I was careful not to talk back. It turns out that sound bite stating that talking on the cell phone is equivalent to driving drunk is not just a way of explaining the impact of distraction. The statement is based on an experiment conducted in a driving simulator comparing intoxicated participants and participants using a cell phone.

I think I have made this point before – “just because lots of folks do something does not mean what they are doing is productive and it certainly does not mean that we are being helpful by being enablers”. Adolescents are likely no better at performing while distracted than you were at the same age.