On Stupidity, Part 2 Exactly how should we teach the 'digital natives'?

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA

On Stupidity, Part 2
Exactly how should we teach the 'digital natives'?
By THOMAS H. BENTON

Last month I reviewed a collection of recent books (The Chronicle, August 1) arguing that Americans, particularly those now entering college, have been rendered "stupid" by a convergence of factors including traditional anti-intellectualism, consumer culture, the entertainment industry, political correctness, religious fundamentalism, and postmodern relativism, just to name some of the usual suspects.

Of course the anticipated consequences of the "stupidity crisis" seem dire enough — the end of democracy, the economic decline of the United States, the extinction of humanity as we know it — that one feels compelled to register opposition to the "Age of Unreason" by buying a few books.

I bought seven of them. And I am convinced — as if I ever doubted it — that, over the past several decades, we have become less knowledgeable, more apathetic, more reliant on others to think for us, more susceptible to simple answers, and more easily exploited.
The Link to the article is :

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/09/2008090501c.htm

Library Connect newsletter from Elsevier

The latest issue is now available at:
http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcn/0603/lcn060301.html

The overall theme is E-Learning.

Includes some useful insights on how libraries can support e-learning on campus and lots more.....

Book Southern Africa

For those of you who haven't discovered it (I have just come across it)
http://book.co.za/
"BOOK Southern Africa is a literary news and social network for publishers, authors and the general book-buying and -reading public. BOOK SA reports on local fiction, non-fiction, poetry, biography, book happenings, reviews and more: you can start exploring now by clicking the links above.
BOOK SA is also a free author and publisher website service for those involved in the world of Southern African literature. Our sites' special features help drive information about books throughout the web, attracting new audiences and creating more space for literary endeavours. Our goal is to help build the Southern African literary marketplace to new heights. "

Libraries go digital with Ipod

http://www.women24.com/Women24/BooksAstrology/News/Article/0,,1-12-68_20014,00.html

Online literacy

Two more interesting articles from the Chronicle of HE on this topic.

ONLINE LITERACY IS A LESSER KIND: Web skimming may be a kind of
literacy, says Mark Bauerlein, but it's not the kind that
matters most.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b01001.htm?utm_source=at&utm_me
d
ium=en
* DISCUSSION OF DIGITAL TOOLS' ROLE IN LEARNING:
http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/?utm_source=at&utm
_medium=en

Digital generation???

(Interesting to note that this is talking about American students)

[from the Chronicle of HE]
NOT ALL YOUNG PEOPLE ARE TECH-SAVVY: Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a "digital generation," writes Siva Vaidhyanathan.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b00701.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

user name: rulibrary
password: ru2007

Exceprt:
Every class has a handful of people with amazing skills and a large number who can't deal with computers at all. A few lack mobile phones. Many can't afford any gizmos and resent assignments that demand digital work. Many use Facebook and MySpace because they are easy and fun, not because they are powerful (which, of course, they are not). And almost none know how to program or even code text with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Only a handful come to college with a sense of how the Internet fundamentally differs from the other major media platforms in daily life.
College students in America are not as "digital" as we might wish to pretend. And even at elite universities, many are not rich enough. All this mystical talk about a generational shift and all the claims that kids won't read books are just not true. Our students read books when books work for them (and when I tell them to). And they all (I mean all) tell me that they prefer the technology of the bound book to the PDF or Web page. What kids, like the rest of us, don't like is the price of books.
Of course they use Google, but not very well — just like my 75-year-old father. And they fill the campus libraries at all hours, just as Americans of all ages are using libraries in record numbers. (According to the American Library Association, visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent from 1994 to 2004).

Recycle your A4 discarded paper

One of our student technical officers has kindly offered to be responsible for taking suitable paper to the computer labs on campus which offer students a facility for using recycled paper for printing. There is a box on the table in the photocopy room where you may deposit used A4 paper. This should be printed on one side only.

Journal of Library Innovation

The Western New York Library Resources Council is pleased to announce
plans to publish The Journal of Library Innovation, one of the first
journals devoted explicitly to innovation and creativity in libraries.
This peer reviewed, electronic journal will publish original research,
literature reviews, commentaries, case studies, reports on innovative
practices, letters, as well as book and product reviews. The journal will
also welcome provocative essays that will stimulate thought on the current
and future role of libraries in an Internet Age.
The inaugural issue will be published in January 2010. Please watch for a
call for papers in the near future. For more information, please contact
Editor-in-Chief Sheryl Knab (sknab@wnylrc.org) or Managing Editor Pamela
Jones (pjones@medaille.edu