“I always shy away from that kind of argument: Is it intellectually better?” Little says.
Dr. Yong Zhao, professor of education and director of the Center for Teaching and Technology at Michigan State University, agrees. Of millennials, he says: “They’re not more stupid or less stupid, they’re just different.”
Whether people like it or not, Zhao says, the new technology is defining new skills and market demands for them. He cites the examples of effective salesmanship on eBay and the earning potential of designing buildings on a 3-D Web site.
“Can we judge these technologies based on their usefulness in the physical world? There is mounting evidence we can’t judge based on that” alone, Zhao says. “The virtual part is of value itself.”
On the other hand, if Bauerlein is right about the negative intellectual impact of how students actually use technology, one implication would be that the digital divide has been responsible for less of the education gap than had been projected. The author, who has previously written books about the Atlanta race riot of 1906 and civil rights, says he has not researched that specific issue but offers an impression.
“I think that was overplayed,” Bauerlein says.
Although he takes a slow, low-tech approach in his classes, Bauerlein does not think he risks his students being unprepared for the modern workplace. They get that exposure, he concedes, from his many colleagues who have gone full bore into campus technology.
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
