Digital Natives: Who teaches whom?
UPDATED: 8:28 a.m. ET
In a year or two, colleges will be educating freshmen who have always lived with the Internet. Mosaic, the first browser with in-line pictures, debuted in 1993, explained Rich Beckman of the University of Miami School of Communication.
These digital natives or millennials, depending on who does the naming, are digitally enhanced with smart phones, iPods and laptops. Are old-school professors who shun technology adequately prepared to teach them?
“The opportunity for truly collaborative learning has arrived,” said Sanjeev Chatterjee, a vice dean who was educated British colonial- style in India, “if, we’re open to it.”
That could mean professors teach students in the round and get educated in return, instead of lecturing one-way to rows of students.
About 40 people assembled Tuesday did agree that Baby Boomers, Generation-Xers and Digital Natives must agree on a new etiquette and each make an accommodation so everyone can get along.
“Can we set up a standard for behavior that won’t offend the young or the old?” asked Susan Schein of the Entertainment Industry Incubator. Fifteen people talking on mobile phones at once on a public bus, she said, is distracting, and in many cases rude.
Sam L Grogg, dean of the School of Communication and moderator, said older generations of adults are annoyed with digital natives who talk on cell phones [often with Bluetooth headsets, so they look like they’re talking to themselves], “tweet” on Twitter and resemble crazy people walking Manhattan streets.
These wireless folks, he said, are the social equivalent of automobiles that drove many horses off city streets a century ago. Now, asked Groggan, where’s the benefit this century, like less horse droppings to dodge in 1902?
Jillian C. York of the OpenNet Initiative at Harvard University agreed that a social etiquette must be established so multiple generations can understand each other.
Beckman stressed that 50-something professors need to play on the digital native’s field and not risk becoming digital immigrants.
Where are your laptops? He asked students in his class. They answered that they put them away because other professors refused to let them use the equipment.
How ironic. The University of Miami School of Business Administration, host of this day’s We Media sessions, had electrical outlets on the side of every seat in the auditorium to encourage use of laptops, and wireless access.
I interjected that barring students from using laptops in class now was like newspaper editors in the 1980s who were wary of having televisions play in newsrooms; they assumed reporters would goof off.
Teachers, students, editors and reporters realize that the machines or gadgets, be they laptops or TVs, must be used as effective tools, not playthings.
Michael Marshall, panelist and editor-in-chief of UPI.com is optimistic about collaborating with digital natives.
UPI is a century-old brand long identified with journalist legends Walter Cronkite and Helen Thomas. The wire service competed with the Associated Press, but lost the battle in the 1970s and 1980s when UPIs primary clients, evening newspapers, died off.
“We’re now something small and flexible and able to adapt,” said Marshall, who touted the UPIU program, a social media platform for aspiring and professional journalists.
