Conflation, Confusion, and Digitalization

Tell me if this strikes you as ironic.

Imagine you're someone faced with a problem. The problem could be solved by writing a one line e-mail and moving on. Instead of - or, to be fair, maybe in addition to - doing this, you write an entire paragraph (or a page or whatever) complaining about the problem.

I came across this over at Prone to Laughter, and followed it through to Learning Curves, and it seems like there a few things worth talking about here.

Like many of the posters on both threads, I have some problem with the application of the idea of "digital natives." Like most theoretical concepts, it's often used haphazardly. We're prone to assuming that students in colleges are representative of this idea. And to a significant extent they are. But this is the first assumption - and it's a dangerous one for us to make - is that they all are. There are still students - a significant number of them - for whom college is their first real experience to regular internet access. Assuming that because your students are young and should be members of this "digital native" group that they are, and that because of that they know the ins and outs is a dubious.

But the second confusion about the concept is more insidious. And Dance does a nice job of raising the question: being a digital native does not imply fluency or literacy. Instead, it implies a different set of relationships, the same way that being a native of one country's culture doesn't mean complete fluency in every detail or a proper use of all the cultural tools and concepts. Instead, it means that the way one relates is likely to be different.

The reason for the question of irony at the beginning of the post is this. One of the things that we hope for "digital natives" is that they'll be - or become - fluent in the most efficient ways of navigating all the information available to them. A person who is truly digitally literate - or even academically literate - should be able to think of several ways short of e-mailing the professor about when a final is.

But - and this is huge - the most efficient way is to find out directly from the person who has the most control and knowledge of the situation. I could check the registrar's site, but if there was a change, would the registrar likely be aware of it? I could check the department's web site or with the department secretary, but again, is it possible they might be missing some crucial piece of information? I could ask a classmate. They might be wrong. The syllabus could have been changed. The one nexus of information most likely to have the best information is the professor.

That said, at the end of the day, even if questions like that are annoying, students asking us questions should be treated as a good thing. How many times have you wanted to remind them that it's better to ask than assume? Or better to be sure than to make a guess?

We've got a lot to gripe about, but this one just seems silly to me.