NML Doesn't Know Just How Illiterate They Are

I found that the NML staff had a bunch of good ideas for creating a base when interacting with some one or someones culture that you are not familiar with. The ideas they put forth would definitely help social networkers to build their PLN on a global scale. However, aren't most of these techniques that we would use in everyday life and not strictly limited to technology or social networking?

I think that these ideas aren't simply applicable to computer users in the 21st century, but to everyone in everyday life. These ideals that these people put up, as their base for whatever it is they are trying to do technologically, are tools that everyone has been using for some time. Not just in the 21st century. I can honestly say that as a student, i have used half of these techniques this week alone, and its only Tuesday! And the rest Ive used before.

This is the goal or mission statement stated at the top of the NML website, "a research initiative based within MIT's Comparative Media Studies program, explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world." What does that mean? Statistically speaking, young people are the most technologically advanced individuals on the face of the earth!!! they need to be teaching old people how to use a computer. Or coming up with new stuff for the young people to use.

I checked out the NML blog. Matt Levinson says that his son taught him to use his iPhone. And these are the kinds of people that teach our universities. The truth is that sometimes, the teachers don't know half of the material they are teaching. But that's really not a problem, it comes with the territory. The field of technology is growing ever faster each and every day. So how is a teacher or a student to keep up with the pace? For that matter, who is even setting the pace to begin with? The reality of the matter is that all of us being effected by this spontaneous growth of information are the ones creating, changing, and involving ourselves in it. Its a big circle. Sometimes the teacher will do his job and teach, but then again, that teacher has a lot to learn from an increasingly tech literate college student who might have something to bring to the table. So all in all the trick is open communication and inclusion in the thought process.