当代大学生不是“数字原住民”,他们是“数字仆人”

高等教育必须承认自身在数字时代中带来的额外工作量,克里斯托弗・沙伯格(Christopher Schaberg)说

一月 18, 2022
Digital people tethered by data strings
Source: Getty

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十多年前,“数字原住民”一词开始在校园中出现,指的是于无处不在的数据中长大的学生。起初,它有一定的道理。个人计算技术变化和传播得如此之快,许多学生似乎对逃避老一辈人的设备感到舒适。

然而,到现在为止,这个绰号似乎明显有害。如果有的话,那么现在的学生是数字仆人。他们被期望不断地监控任何数量的数字平台,以跟踪他们的"学术旅程"(另一个不幸的比喻,但那是另一篇文章)。有时感觉好像学生的工作越来越倾向于维护一个围绕教育建立的精心设计的系统,而不是这个系统实际上是关于教育学生的。

这个问题最明显的地方与学习管理软件有关。旨在跨课程作业提供平台一致性和可访问性,并在大流行期间作为应对所有突发事件的万能药进行推广,Canvas和Blackboard等界面可能很快就会变成笨拙、耗时的第三空间。现代学生不仅必须上课和做作业,还必须下载材料、上传作品并参与这个虚拟环境中任意数量的讨论板或论坛。

数字奴役的另一个来源是电子邮件。在最近的一堂课上,我不禁注意到一个学生的未读邮件有数以万计。我怀疑这并不罕见。学生会收到信息性电子邮件、与课程作业相关的警报、将他们冗余地引导回学习管理平台上的公告等等。这的确是刺耳的声音,所以我不怪学生们把它们关掉。

同样,电子邮件代表了另一层隐形工作,这些工作被认为对于数字原住民是游刃有余的。但事实是,学生很少获得任何关于电子邮件礼仪、读写或时间管理的真正培训。为什么他们应该被认为天生比老一辈人更擅长这些呢?

从任何一门课程的角度来看,额外的数字工作似乎完全可以管理。但是,在多个课程中增加这项额外工作可能会引起令人难以置信的焦虑。无休止的电子邮件收件箱、层叠的学习系统公告、甚至是一长串的PDF文章,在充满竞争的窗口和标签的屏幕上下载和阅读都会产生真正的心理后果。许多学生的抑郁情绪因为这项总是未完成(事实上是无法完成的)工作的绝对重量而加剧。

大学如何谈论所有这些辅助数字工作(或不谈论它)很重要。它通常通过"学生成功中心"以及提供与学术环境平行的建议、指导和其他资源来处理,但这些努力可能会进一步假设目标只是成为一个不知疲倦的数字仆人——一个真正可怕的生活观念。

有具体的方法可以抵制课堂上的数字奴役。精确的方法因学科而异,但我采用的广泛策略应该适用于各个学科。

对于最终项目,我提供了做一些有创意的事情的机会。例如,在最近的一门环境人文课程中,我的两个学生受到蒂莫西·莫顿(Timothy Morton)的《生态思想》(The Ecological Thought)一书中讨论的某幅画的启发。他们通过粘贴我们在课堂上阅读文本中的各种关键字和概念,将拼贴画叠加到绘画的复制品上。这个触觉敏锐的合作项目对他们来说是一个令人耳目一新的休息时间。当展示时,它为他们的同学提供了另一种参与课程材料的方式。

我们也花时间在课堂上大声朗读。这听起来像是最基本的教学实践,但在一个几乎恒定的连接和多任务处理的时代,进行这种模拟活动是接地气和慢速的,只需要存在和倾听。它还增强了学生的信心,以及对他们正在学习的内容的主人翁意识。我经常很高兴看到安静的学生在学期中途自愿阅读;在看到他们更吵闹的同学做了几次之后,他们想自己尝试一下。最近的一名学生在学期结束时找到我,说她非常喜欢大声朗读,以至于她想寻求其他机会来做这件事。我让她与当地一家致力于盲人阅读的广播电台取得了联系。

在我最近的环境人文研讨会上,我们读了珍妮·奥德尔(Jenny Odell)的《如何什么都不做:抵制注意力经济》(How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy)一书。这为做一些有趣的事情提供了动力:我们花了一部分时间在一个班级里无所事事。我们离开了电脑和手机,离开了课堂20分钟。

我担心这看起来像是一个噱头或逃避。相反,我的学生很兴奋,被迫离开他们的设备,不受阻碍地反思。每个人都渴望分享他们所观察到的,他们所想的。这是一种觉醒,看到他们多么渴望被拔掉插头,即使只有20分钟。

旨在帮助学生导航和管理其教育路径的媒体形式最终会吸走他们所有的注意力和精力。非数字课堂作业可以表明,其他形式的生活——不那么疯狂,让学生更有存在感——仍然是可能的。

克里斯托弗・沙伯格(Christopher Schaberg)是新奥尔良洛约拉大学(Loyola University New Orleans)的Dorothy Harrell Brown杰出英语教授。他的新书是《抑郁症的教育学》(Pedagogy of the Depressed)。

本文由张万琪为泰晤士高等教育翻译。

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Reader's comments (3)

It isn't digital servitude when all of the things you mention are optional. Notifications in Canvas can be turned off, emails left unread or automatically sent to junk, text messages ignored. VLE's have developed this way in response to students' demand to move away from primitive teaching methods. The old days of unintelligible lecturers scrawling notes on a blackboard are thankfully long gone. There is a place for the none digital teaching methods you advocate of course and finding the balance between both methods is the mark of a good teacher.
I read this with delight as I thought that we were once and for all going to be told that 'Digital Natives' is an inaccurate term and that the idea that people born into an era with ubiquitous computing doesn't necessarily mean that they are instantly digital scholars. However, it was not to be and the idea of Digital Servants is introduced instead. Whatever happened to critical thinking? (or critical digital pedagogy?) Courses using an LMS, too many emails and downloading PDFs doesn't sound like the students are servants but more like there's a whole piece of work to be done with the design of the course and how you communicate with your students. LMS should be supporting not having a life of its own. There are some unintended consequences too from requiring students to be away from their phones for twenty minutes. Some students do not have the privilege of being able to not use their phone when they are relying on it for work or if they have caring responsibilities. There are also many unseen issues that despite the best will in the world you would never find out about such as domestic abuse. It is common for abusers to use mobiles to maintain control over their victims and so it causes more anxiety and stress or worse physical harm. I feel very sad to see that you are not being encouraged to embrace change and use the tech for improving your sessions and that students are not being shown (by example) how to make the most of the resources that they have been given access to at your university. Students who have a learning difference and may not even know it yet may rely on reading via their phones, or if they are lucky enough to have a reading device (kindle, tablet etc) they can annotate online and can share their comments with you or together. There is a lot that can help improve a session but that doesn't mean that you have to have either analogue or digital. Being able to manage the emails made me smile. Students don't have to read all their emails, they get notifications and usually can see the first part of the email on their phone. If it doesn't look important they can not read it and it remains. I see it as making better use of the systems that are in place and recognising that it's not what you use but the way that you use that can make all the difference.
When we validate a 30 credit module we say students will study for 300 hours - this is the work that you have noticed that students are doing. Like reading - and reading out loud was something I remember from school as both intimidating and timewasting. Reading really is better done outside class.
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