The Only Net-Gen Nonsense : Ruminate - The Diigo Meta page

• 09 Jun 08
  

  Christy Tucker

  Response to the "Net Gen Nonsense" blog and George Siemens' arguments that it's the environment changing rather than the learners. Chris Lott argues that learners have changed in response to the changing environment; the characteristics of these learners are more important than whether the changes are biological or environmental in origin. Interesting analogy to eating in times of abundance and scarcity.

  netgeneration education change

  • I suspect that we will see, in retrospect, that there are biological and neurological changes occurring due to technological changes, but it’s not really important. The remonstrations about the evidence remind me of scientists concluding that bumblebees can’t fly and philosophers concluding that there is no physical reality. Like Berkeley, I refute you thus, with the students I teach every term… but I will refrain from kicking them as proof!
  • The analogy I came up with a few days ago was that of eating. People eat very differently in times of abundance than scarcity. Their biology doesn’t significantly change (though it does some), but it would be foolish to look around and argue that people aren’t really eating differently, it’s just a change in their food context. It would be wiser to recognize that the socioeconomic context is an important factor to consider when it comes to nutrition and try to teach proper eating habits in an environment that is not just no longer one of hunting and gathering, but one that is very different for most of us from even 50 years ago.

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