After reviewing this video, which offers a "Vision of Students Today", I took some time to reflect on my own student experience and assumptions. After some thought, quite frankly, I find that I am insulted by the vision offered by the video.
A bit of context. The video has a room full of students presenting facts and figures about their daily lives, set to a trance beat. (Actually, I am not sure about that last part, since I disabled my laptop speakers earlier today - that's another story. I base this assumption on the credits at the end of the video). The facts are related to topics like: Facebooking; cellphone usage; student experience (class life, teacher relations, lecture experience); internet usage; music; and, downloading. There are two things that bother me: there is no suggestion that any topics or data were omitted from the final cut, and there is little in the way of narrative.
A bit of context. The video has a room full of students presenting facts and figures about their daily lives, set to a trance beat. (Actually, I am not sure about that last part, since I disabled my laptop speakers earlier today - that's another story. I base this assumption on the credits at the end of the video). The facts are related to topics like: Facebooking; cellphone usage; student experience (class life, teacher relations, lecture experience); internet usage; music; and, downloading. There are two things that bother me: there is no suggestion that any topics or data were omitted from the final cut, and there is little in the way of narrative.
I'll cover the latter first. Multitasking, using the internet, using cell phones and Facebook... how do they all connect? This video offers little in the way of a continuous narrative. There is an interesting section where the "number of hours" of activity by each student is added up to create a 26.5 hour day. The next "Fact cards" say that students today are multitaskers. Of course, some of the activities mentioned involve multitasking. For instance, listenting to music was linked to "2.5 hours per day"... but for decades people have used radios to listen to music and programming while they commute, read, perform chores, or work out. Does that count as multi-tasking? Puh-leeze. It's an insult to real multitaskers.
I'm a member of this generation, and I failed to see my own experience. Where is the time spent socializing? Where is the amount of alcohol consumed? (We are talking about university students). What about the "negative" multitasking? For instance, Facebooking during lecture times. Many of the other facts seem to apply equally to previous generations of students: for instance, anxiety over anonymyty (in the classroom and with profs) and admission of not using class resources (like textbook). This is my first critique: what kind of facts and figures were left out of the video? Since there is not an over-arching narrative or goal of the video, we don't know what kind of goal the makers have of the audience.
I'm a member of this generation, and I failed to see my own experience. Where is the time spent socializing? Where is the amount of alcohol consumed? (We are talking about university students). What about the "negative" multitasking? For instance, Facebooking during lecture times. Many of the other facts seem to apply equally to previous generations of students: for instance, anxiety over anonymyty (in the classroom and with profs) and admission of not using class resources (like textbook). This is my first critique: what kind of facts and figures were left out of the video? Since there is not an over-arching narrative or goal of the video, we don't know what kind of goal the makers have of the audience.
At this point, I'd like to try to explain the message and assumptions that I would have tried to make more explicit in my own version (if it were to exist) of the video. I have given this issue some thought, and it is my opinion that what makes students today (my generation) different from the boomers or xers is that we make different assumptions about the nature of information and knowledge.
Allow me to explain by starting with a broad and open-ended question. How do the Internet, video games, and cell phones change assumptions about the nature of information and communication? With the internet, any information can be accessed quickly and efficiently. If you want to know the name of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, you do not have to read an entire chapter (or book) about 17th century England. Instead, you can access the information by using efficient search terms. This has marked a change in emphasis from retaining information to accessing and sorting information. In other words, the better learners are the ones who can use efficient search terms to find relevant items, and then use critical skills to determine their validity and accuracy. So, an "internet" generation does not need to learn as much "content" because they can assume that the information can be accessed anytime that they need it. Rather, with so much information available because of the internet, they need to learn better critical and analytic skills to ensure that they can identify the most relevant material. (On a separate note, this begs a major question about peer review journals in an age of wikipedia).
Moving on, cell phones have changed basic assumptions about connectivity and accessibility.With the advent of the cell phone, it became possible to make connections from anywhere, at any time. And as cell phones have evolved into Web-browsing capable devices, the possibilities of "mobile connectivity" have gained the same characteristics: through the world wide web, it is possible to access information anytime and anywhere on your mobile device. Whether or not you actually own such a device does not make much of a difference: the pervasive presence of mobile devices at all strata of society ensures that you receive information and see people accessing information all of the time.
For me, this is fundamental shift in the assumptions we make about knowledge, and it is a fundamental shift that is not obvious. When you can access information from anywhere at anytime, you do not need to put emphasis on your own ability to retain detailed facts. It is better to retain the general facts, as well as a "path" to re-access the information.
I have a feeling that this is something that I will return to again in my writing, so I will leave it here.
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