I hear all the time how today’s students are different, technologically savvy, etc. They are “digital natives,” whatever that means. Actually, I know what it is meant to imply: That technology is a native language for them; whereas us poor “older” people (whatever THAT means) are “stuck” speaking a creole of digital/analog. Nice try. We’re not cyborgs yet; and that analogy is flawed in many, many ways, but yet the label of the college age set lives on.

If digital native is meant to imply that students are familiar with and more or less comfortable with using a computer, I guess we could generalize and say that it is not unreasonable to expect that most college age students have used computers. BUT the kinds of things they use them for varies significantly. This expression has always bothered me, but as I am starting to meet the students I will be working with, it’s going to bother me more and more. Not because there’s any problem with coming into college to learn stuff. That’s why we go! But because there are a lot of assumptions about what kids already know about information literacy, and there are very few people at the faculty level who feel comfortable enough to teach it. I know there’s all kinds of other critical thinking skills to be learnt without a computer, and I am strong advocate of that. But on the other hand– to be a wholly effective producer, not just consumer, in the digital age–one has to be agile across a range of cyber-settings.

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