The New York Times uses data from a study by Nielson Mobile to conclude that mobile messaging is now a more popular form of communication than even the cell phone.
The average cellphone owner engages in 204 calls a month, but 357 text messages. The numbers are heavily skewed by those in the 13-17 years who send/receive 1742 messages a month. Is this even possible?
I am hoping their parents have an unlimited texting plan.
This is move-in weekend at UND. I love this part of university life – new faces arriving on campus with great hopes for the future. I have always said that one of the great benefits of being a university prof is the opportunity to be part of this annual process of renewal.
Age is becoming an issue. I have worked on a college campus as a prof since 1975. At the faculty meeting on Thursday, one of my age mates announced he was retiring. He is going to work part time doing distance education from Denver. The time for me to make a similar announcement grows nearer. Not quite yet.
Relating is becoming a little more difficult. I used to relate to new students using experiences with my own kids. Now, as one by one my kids have graduated, even this basis for comparison has slipped away.
You would think working with technology would help, but the messages in this field even seem designed to convince me I am out of date – an immigrant instead of a native. However, I was looking through my Flickr account and I came across an image that helped.
This is a screen capture I generated about a month ago with granddaughter Addie. As a young technology user yet to reach her second birthday, Addie likes to use the computer to talk with “grandpy”. She uses a computer to send video over the Internet and at her age I had yet to experience television. Actually, Addie’s television experiences are limited as well, but that is a parental decision.
So, I walk about campus watching freshpersons exploring with their parents while simultaneously texting to their friends who are back home or showing up at other campuses around the country. I don’t even carry a cell phone. Despite the technical skills that I do have I suppose these students may find me hopelessly dated and unable to relate.
Then, it occurs to me. It is all a matter of perspective and an inevitable part of the grand process. Generations are different and understanding is not always easy. Perhaps these new college students are also already dated and maybe too old to see. The new college students may not understand my life style or values, but Addie cannot understand why they don’t go back to their dorm rooms and contact their own grandpys on the computer. Maybe they just don’t know how yet. Maybe their moms are not there to help.
Change happens and we can always learn from each other as long as we recognize that our perspective is just a perspective.
The New York Times intends to offer a series of articles examining how the Internet is changing the way people read. The first offering in this series examines whether online reading is a positive or negative influence on the development of reading skills.
The facts are that children are spending less time reading traditional content, i.e., books, and scores on tests of reading proficiency are stagnant. My interpretation is that researchers have yet to relate these two trends in a way that would argue for a causal relationship, but some early data and the opinions of some are leaning toward pointing to the Internet as a negative influence. A potentially independent and much more optimistic observation notes that online literacy (locating and processing online information) may represent a different and valuable form of literacy. Some organizations are urging that this proficiency be developed and also evaluation. Perhaps both sustained reading and online scanning are valuable.
At present, positions range from the nature of online reading is rewiring the brain to process information in a different fashion, to the nature of online searching rather than thinking has resulted in the loss or failure to develop sustained thinking/reasoning strategies (see earlier post – Has Google made us stupid?), to the opportunity to explore and search has resulted in the development of additional strategies.
The Times article offers a nice overview of the alternative positions.
As an aside – I hate the way the Times makes use of linking. Rather than linking to a related article, the link is to a themed collection (articles about the Organization for Economic Development, articles about the University of Michigan, etc.). Perhaps I am missing the point – the link is to the organization and there is no article on the specific issue – but what would be the point of making such a link?
Tags: onlineliteracy, 21st century learners, generations
This just in – digital natives may not have magical techno powers. Mark Baurlein, Emory University, points to an ETS study conducted with a very large samples of college students demonstrating that web search skills and the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate the quality of information located through web searches were often not sufficient to complete college level assignments. I agree that too much has been made of the general technical sophistication and applied capabilities of college students.However, like unwarranted assumptions regarding the breadth of tech skills those who walk onto our campuses might possess, I also think it inappropriate to assume technology offers little of academic value.
The report is part of a body of discouraging findings and outcomes regarding the academic benefits of technology. Unfortunately, those reports are pretty much swamped by the flood of enthusiasm (and money) pouring over newly-wired classrooms and campuses. Given the enormous cost of technology, we should pay more attention to actual results and give less credence to airy predictions.
While I deal with students and understand the limitations as described, my wife works directly to help future teachers develop skills necessary to integrate technology when they move on to classrooms of their own. I like how she describes the situation. Her students seldom have the technical skills or pedagogical insights she attempts to develop, but they come with sophisticated technical expertise in other areas that has transfer value in taking on these somewhat different goals and they typically (but not always) see the value in making the effort.Search skills can be learned. Naive assumptions that all information is created equal can be overcome. Given some general guidelines and heightened awareness, critical thinking tends to be applied when we value the consequences of decisions we make.
Frontline (PBS) had an hour program entitled “Growing Up Online” that aired this evening. The program explores a wide variety of topics (cheating, social networking dangers, generational differences). You can view the program and related material at the PBS site. These resources would be quite useful in a pre-service teacher ed tech class.
I learned of this program from other blogs and it appeared some felt the program would play up negative issues and this would result in an overly negative public reaction to services that have value. While the focus was probably more on “concerns” than opportunities, in areas in which I have read some of the research (e.g., danger from online predators), I thought the program raised the issues I felt were necessary to present an accurate picture (e.g., level of solicitation from strangers is rare, adolescents are aware of dangers, risky behavior has multiple causes). I did not feel the program focused on fear mongering.
(NYTimes follow-up, Washington Post follow-up)
Perhaps too much has been made of generational difference in the way technology has been used. And, perhaps there is a confusion between comfort level and productivity.
A research study just released concludes:
The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.
The group responsible for this study intends to track individuals longitudinally. The group also seems to contend that bad scholarship is like a disease – the rest of us are catching it from our students (I made the part about the disease model up – the group says no such thing, but they do observe that similar patterns are emerging across generations).
(pdf explaining the research and intent of the group is available to those in which the problem has not progressed past the point of no return – read while you still can) 😉
BTW- the details in the pdf are a little sparse. This is more of an issue piece, but the issues are interesting and linked to some research.
The pioneers thing? – I am searching for a term to fill in the gaps allowed by categorizing folks as immigrants and natives.Anyway, I came across this post which attempts to create historical connections between hypercard and Safari 3.0. Not certain which principles of historical inquiry are violated, but I suppose the answer would be “several”. Still, it was cool just to see screen captures from hypercard. Remember cyberdog? What a stroll down memory lane!
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