This recent Herald newspaper article Great internet age divide is a myth by Andrew Denholm brought a knowing smile to my lips.
The article was about Dr Dan Russell a senior research scientist for internet search company Google, who was ‘visiting Scotland to deliver a lecture in the importance of digital literacy at Strathclyde University, Glasgow’.
He said: “There is a myth about the digital native and the Google generation kid who, because they are young, are seen as being more computer literate than their parents, but that is totally wrong.
“Kids can be very fluid and fast with computers, but they are only fast when they are doing something they have had a lot of practice in.”
Haven’t we been saying that since the digital generation was first spouted?
The article goes on to say that
‘Mr Russell said research showed the way younger users of technology learned skills came from interactions with their friends rather than formal education.
“This is a huge disservice because, certainly in the US, lots of colleges have stopped their information retrieval courses and they assume falsely that students know this stuff and I think it is pretty clear they don’t.”
Sound familiar? I’m sure it does. What springs to mind is head teachers who don’t think schools need school libraries or school librarians – just a computer centre, as everything is on the internet and young people know have to use computers …
As he says “We are doing a terrible disservice to our students by not making research a crucial element of the curriculum. It has to be because, in a world where these things are changing rapidly, if you don’t have the skills to be able to keep up you will be stuck in the past.” I would endorse that but also include information literacy as a crucial element.
According to the article ‘Mr Russell’s talk explored the changing definition of literacy at a time when it is possible to search billions of texts in milliseconds over the internet.’ and that:
“Although you might think literacy is one of the great constants that transcends the ages, the skills of a literate person have changed substantially over time as texts and technology allow for new kinds of reading and understanding.
“Knowing how to frame a question, pose a query, how to interpret the texts you find, how to organise and use the information you discover are all critical parts of being literate as well.”
Sounds like information literacy to me ….
I looked at the online article comments – not surprisingly they were about computers and programming in my opion completely missing the skills point.