No grandiosity here

#digitalnatives and #edtech and #woolongong- The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, Bennett et al Feb 2008

I blogged the other day on a recent paper on the myth of the digital native. Here is another paper, by Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin, from nearly a decade ago, on the same theme – and equally trenchant:

The idea that a new generation of students is entering the education system has excited recent attention among educators and education commentators. Termed ‘digital natives’ or the ‘Net generation’, these young people are said to have been immersed in technology all their lives, imbuing them with sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which traditional education is unprepared. Grand claims are being made about the nature of this generational change and about the urgent necessity for educational reform in response. A sense of impending crisis pervades this debate. However, the actual situation is far from clear. In this paper, the authors draw on the fields of education and sociology to analyse the digital natives debate. The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a ‘moral panic’. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate ‘digital natives’ and their implications for education.

On an entirely different note, the authors are/were affiliated with the University of Woolongong. Recent days have seen the death of Geoff Mack, who wrote the song “I’ve Been Everywhere” Originally a list of Australian placenames :

The song inspired versions internationally – the best known being Johnny Cash’s and The Simpsons’ – but the wittiest alternative version is this (NB – Dapto is a few miles from Wollongong)

Anyway, back the digital natives. Bennet et al begin with a quote from Marcel Proust:

The one thing that does not change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been
‘great changes’.
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

The authors summarise what a digital native is supposed to be like – and the not exactly extensive evidence base for their existence:

The claim made for the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ is based on two
main assumptions in the literature, which can be summarised as follows:

1. Young people of the digital native generation possess sophisticated
knowledge of and skills with information technologies.
2. As a result of their upbringing and experiences with technology, digital natives have particular learning preferences or styles that differ from earlier generations of students.

In the seminal literature on digital natives, these assertions are put forward with limited
empirical evidence (eg, Tapscott, 1998), or supported by anecdotes and appeals to
common-sense beliefs (eg, Prensky, 2001a). Furthermore, this literature has been referenced,
often uncritically, in a host of later publications (Gaston, 2006; Gros, 2003;
Long, 2005; McHale, 2005; Skiba, 2005). There is, however, an emerging body of
research that is beginning to reveal some of the complexity of young people’s computer
use and skills.

No one denies that a lot of young people use a lot of technology – but not all:

In summary, though limited in scope and focus, the research evidence to date indicates
that a proportion of young people are highly adept with technology and rely on it for a
range of information gathering and communication activities. However, there also
appears to be a significant proportion of young people who do not have the levels of access or technology skills predicted by proponents of the digital native idea. Such generalisations about a whole generation of young people thereby focus attention on
technically adept students. With this comes the danger that those less interested and less able will be neglected, and that the potential impact of socio-economic and cultural factors will be overlooked. It may be that there is as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations.

It is often suggested that children who are merrily exploring the digital world are ground down with frustration by not having the same access to computers in school. This is part of a more general (with familiar rhetoric for the health IT world) demand for transformation (the word “disruptive” in its modern usage had not quite caught on in 2008) As is often the case, the empirical evidence (and also, I would say, a certain degree of common sense) is not with the disrupters:

The claim we will now examine is that current educational systems must change in
response to a new generation of technically adept young people. Current students have
been variously described as disappointed (Oblinger, 2003), dissatisfied (Levin & Arafeh,
2002) and disengaged (Prensky, 2005a). It is also argued that educational institutions
at all levels are rapidly becoming outdated and irrelevant, and that there is an urgent
need to change what is taught and how(Prensky, 2001a; Tapscott, 1998). For example,
Tapscott (1999) urges educators and authorities to ‘[g]ive students the tools, and they
will be the single most important source of guidance on how to make their schools relevant and effective places to learn’ (p. 11).Without such a transformation, commentators
warn, we risk failing a generation of students and our institutions face imminent
obsolescence.

However, there is little evidence of the serious disaffection and alienation among students
claimed by commentators. Downes’ (2002) study of primary school children
(5–12 years old) found that home computer use was more varied than school use and
enabled children greater freedom and opportunity to learn by doing. The participants
did report feeling limited in the time they were allocated to use computers at school and
in the way their use was constrained by teacher-directed learning activities. Similarly,
Levin and Arafeh’s (2002) study revealed students’ frustrations at their school Internet
use being restricted, but crucially also their recognition of the school’s in loco parentis
role in protecting them from inappropriate material. Selwyn’s (2006) student participants
were also frustrated that their freedom of use was curtailed at school and ‘were
well aware of a digital disconnect but displayed a pragmatic acceptance rather than the
outright alienation from the school that some commentators would suggest’ (p. 5).

In 2008 Bennett et al summarised similar issues relating to students actual rather than perceived technical adeptness and net savviness to the 2016 authors:

Furthermore, questions must be asked about the relevance to education of the everyday
ICTs skills possessed by technically adept young people. For example, it cannot be
assumed that knowing how to look up ‘cheats’ for computer games on the Internet
bears any relation to the skills required to assess a website’s relevance for a school
project. Indeed, existing research suggests otherwise. When observing students interacting
with text obtained from an Internet search, Sutherland-Smith (2002) reported
that many were easily frustrated when not instantly gratified in their search for immediate
answers and appeared to adopt a ‘snatch and grab philosophy’ (p. 664). Similarly,
Eagleton, Guinee and Langlais (2003) observed middle-school students often making
‘hasty, random choices with little thought and evaluation’ (p. 30).
Such research observes shallow, random and often passive interactions with text,which
raise significant questions about what digital natives can actually do as they engage
with and make meaning from such technology. As noted by Lorenzo and Dziuban
(2006), concerns over students’ lack of critical thinking when using Internet-based
information sources imply that ‘students aren’t as net savvy as we might have assumed’
(p. 2). This suggests that students’ everyday technology practices may not be directly
applicable to academic tasks, and so education has a vitally important role in fostering
information literacies that will support learning.

Again, this is a paper I could quote bits from all day – so here are a couple of paragraphs from towards the end that summarises their (and my) take on the digital natives:

Neither dismissive scepticism nor uncritical advocacy enable understanding of whether
the phenomenon of digital natives is significant and in what ways education might need
to change to accommodate it. As we have discussed in this paper, research is beginning
to expose arguments about digital natives to critical enquiry, but much more needs to be
done. Close scrutiny of the assumptions underlying the digital natives notion reveals
avenues of inquiry that will inform the debate. Such understanding and evidence are
necessary precursors to change.

The claim that there is a distinctive new generation of students in possession of sophisticated
technology skills and with learning preferences for which education is not
equipped to support has excited much recent attention. Proponents arguing that education
must change dramatically to cater for the needs of these digital natives have
sparked an academic form of a ‘moral panic’ using extreme arguments that have lacked
empirical evidence.

Finally, after posting the prior summary of Kirschner and deBruckyne’s paper, I searched hashtag #digitalnatives on Twitter and – self-promotingly – replied to some of the original tweeters with a link to the paper (interestingly quite a few #digitalnatives tweets were links to discussions of the Kirschner/deBruckyne paper) Some were very receptive, but others were markedly defensive. Obviously a total stranger coming along and pedantically pointing out your hashtag is about something that doesn’t exist may not be the most polite way of interacting on twitter – but also quite a lot of us are quite attached to the myth of the digital native

Helmholtz and the ophthalmoscope, Eurotimes, 2008

Recently I rediscovered some articles for Eurotimes, the European Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons that I had forgotten I had written. I have posted here before some of my book reviews for Eurotimes. I also wrote some pieces on historical ophthalmological figures – the first on Goethe and his work in optics, the second on Hermann von Helmholtz who was one of those towering, foundational figures in modern physics but who also invented the ophthalmoscope

Figure

In the last article, I considered one of the towering geniuses of world culture, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe made enormous contributions to world literature and philosophy, and significant contributions to the nascent sciences of visual perception, linguistics, plant morphology, and felt he would be remembered most of all for his work on optics. Goethe perhaps epitomises the “natural philosopher”, the original term for “scientist” – an individual of boundless curiosity and enthusiasm, a gifted amateur in the true sense. Science owes much to the activities of men and women who operated outside the dynamic of universities and in an age before the research institute or the grant.

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894) is a less towering cultural presence than Goethe. His scientific activities have had a more lasting influence. He bridges the worlds of “natural philosophy” and organised, university based science – both in terms of his lifespan (eleven when Goethe died, he lived to directly influence Einstein and Maxwell) and in his professional life (originally training under paternal pressure as a doctor, he was appointed Professor of Physics in Berlin in 1871). Much of his work attacked the speculative tendencies of the natural philosophers, and was grounded firmly in observation and experiment.

Yet such was the breadth of his activity that he reminds one of the multi-talented natural philosopher as much as a contemporary, specialised physicist or physiologist. The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science describes him in summary as “physiologist, physicist, philosopher and statesman of science.” This begins to capture the breadth and diversity of his interest and involvement. We will discuss his work on perception, and on ophthalmic optics, below, but it is important to recall he was simultaneously working on conservation of energy, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics, and developed the philosophy of science itself. His writings ranged from the age of the earth to the origin and fate of the solar system.

One of the more humbling characteristics of the scientists of the past was their seeming mastery of measurement. We are so used to highly accurate, precise computerised measuring apparatus that we can forget that until relatively recently, researchers often had to build and calibrate their own equipment. And going back only a little further, they had to invent it as well. Most readers of EuroTimes probably use one of Helmholtz’s inventions every day – the ophthalmoscope.

Invented in 1851, the ophthalmoscope is a perfect illustration of Helmholtz’s combination of experimental and inventive skill. The invention made him world famous overnight. Helmholtz was actually independently reinventing a device of Charles Babbage’s from 1847. As so often in science, it was the reinventor who recognised the usefulness and applicability of the invention, rather than the first inventor (Babbage, of course, also managed to invent but not complete the first computer) The handheld ophthalmoscope was developed by Greek ophthalmolosist Andreas Anagonstakis later in the 1850s, and in 1915 William Noah Allyn and Frederick Welch invented the self illuminating ophthalmoscope (and founded Welch Allyn) that is the direct precursor of the modern device.

Who was Helmholtz, this man of so many talents and interests and such lasting influence? Born in Potsdam on 31st August 1821 into a lower middle class family that emphasised the importance of education and cultural activities, his father Ferdinand was a teacher of philosophy and psychology in the local secondary school. His mother was a descendant of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and her maiden name was Penne. Ferdinand Helmholtz was also a close friend of the philosopher Fichte. The scientific and philosophical worlds of the nineteenth century often seem amazingly small and parochial.

Helmholtz’s natural inclination as a student was to pursue studies in physics – however his father observed the financial support available for medical students and the lack thereof for physics students, and persuaded him into medical studies. He enrolled in the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin, the Prussian military’s medical training college. After this, the served as a medical officer in the Prussian military for a time, simultaneously publishing articles on heat and muscle physiology. In 1847 he published his treatise On The Conservation of Force, which was the clearest and ultimately most influential account of what would become known as the principle of the conservation of energy. From his observations of muscles physiology and activity, he tried to demonstrate that there is no energy loss in muscle movement, and no “life force” is necessary to move a muscle.

In 1848 he left military service and embarked on an academic career. In 1849, he became an associate professor of physiology in Konigsberg.. Shortly after he announced the invention of the ophthalmoscope and also made another discovery that would seal his fame – measuring the rate of conduction of signals in nerves. It had been believed that sensory signals arrived at the brain instantaneously, and it was considered beyond the capabilities of experimental science to measure the rate of nerve conduction. Using a new invention, the chronograph, Helmholtz measured the difference between stimulus and reaction times at different parts of the body, and found the speed of neural conduction to be comparable to that of sound, not light.

A full account of all Helmholtz’s discoveries and scientific achievements would take volumes. He had an intense interest in visual perception, especially visual illusions. This interest was based on his philosophical position that we are separate from the world of objects, and isolated from external physical events, except for perceptual signals which, not unlike language, must be learned and read according to various assumptions. These assumptions may or may not be appropriate. This philosophy underlay many of his research activities and interests, and also his idea that perceptions are “unconscious inferences.”

Most of what goes on in the nervous system, according to Helmholtz, is not represented in consciousness. Psychological and physiological experimental findings often surprise us for this reason, because we cannot discover by introspection how we see or how we think. We derive a perception from incomplete data, hence “unconscious inference.” This idea influenced Freud’s idea of the unconscious, and Helmholtz’s student Wilhelm Wundt, who took Helmholtz’s work and ideas further. Another of his students, Heinrich Hertz, further developed Helmholtz’s work on energy and electrodynamics.

Helmholtz had a huge impact on all areas of perceptual science, and many areas of physics. His name lives in a variety of laws and concepts (Helmholtz illusion, Helmholtz free energy, Helmholtz-Kelvin contaction) and that of an association of research institutes in Germany. And of course, for the humble working ophthalmologist, every day, almost without thinking, Helmholtz’s influence as the originator of the modern ophthalmoscope is literally palpable.

“Huge ($$), broken, and therefore easily fixed” : re-reading Neil Versel’s Feb 2013 column “Rewards for watching TV vs rewards for healthy behavior”

Ok, it may seem somewhat arbitrary to bring up a column on MobiHealthNews, a website which promises the latest in digital health news direct to your inbox. However this particular column, and also some of the responses which Versel provoked (collected here), struck a chord with me at the time and indeed largely inspired my presentation at this workshop at the 2013 eChallenges conference.

In 2012 I had beta tested a couple of apps in the general health field (I won’t go into any more specifics) – none of which seemed clinically useful. My interest in healthcare technology had flowed largely from my interest in technology in medical education. Versel’s column, and the comments attributed to “Cynical” in the follow up column by Brian Dolan, struck a chord. I also found they transcended the often labyrinthine structures of US Healthcare.

The key paragraph of Versel’s original column was this

What those projects all have in common is that they never figured out some of the basic realities of healthcare. Fitness and healthcare are distinct markets. The vast majority of healthcare spending comes not from workout freaks and the worried well, but from chronic diseases and acute care. Sure, you can prevent a lot of future ailments by promoting active lifestyles today, but you might not see a return on investment for decades.

..but an awful lot of it is worth quoting:

Pardon my skepticism, but hasn’t everyone peddling a DTC health tool focused on user engagement? Isn’t that the point of all the gamification apps, widgets and gizmos?

I never was able to find anything unique about Massive Health, other than its Massive Hype. It had a high-minded business name, a Silicon Valley rock star on board — namely former Mozilla Firefox creative lead Asa Raskin — and a lot of buzz. But no real breakthroughs or much in the way of actual products.

….

Another problem is that Massive Health, Google Health, Revolution Health and Keas never came to grips with the fact that healthcare is unlike any other industry.

In the case of Google and every other “untethered” personal health record out there, it didn’t fit physician workflow. That’s why I was disheartened to learn this week that one of the first twodevelopment partners for Walgreens’ new API for prescription refills is a PHR startup called Healthspek. I hate to say it, but that is bound to fail unless Walgreens finds a way to populate Healthspek records with pharmacy and Take Care Health System clinic data.

Predictably enough, there was a strong response to Versel’s column. Here is Dr Betsy Bennet:

As a health psychologist with a lot of years in pharma and healthcare, I am continually frustrated with the hype that accompanies most “health apps”. Not everyone enjoys computer games, not everyone wants to “share” the issues they’re ashamed of with their “social network”, not everyone is interested in being a “quantified self”. This is not to say that digital health is futile or a bad idea. But if we took the time to understand why so many doctors hate EHRs and patients are not interested in paying to “manage their health information” (What does that mean, anyway?) we would come a long way towards finding digital interventions that people actually want to use.

 

The most trenchant (particularly point 1) comment was from “Cynical”

Well written. This is one of the few columns (or rants) that actually understands the reality of healthcare and digital health (attending any health care conference will also highlight this divide). What I am finding is two fold:

1. The vast majority of these DTC products are created by people who have had success in other areas of “digital” – and therefore they build what they know – consumer facing apps / websites that just happen to be focused in health. They think that healthcare is huge ($$), broken, and therefore easily fixed using the same principals applied to music, banking, or finding a movie. But they have zero understanding of the “business of healthcare”, and as a result have no ability to actually sell their products into the health care industry – one of the slowest moving, convoluted, and cumbersome industries in the world.

2. Almost none of these products have any clinical knowledge closely integrated — many have a doctor (entrepreneur) on the “advisory board”, but in most cases there are no actual practicing physicians involved (physician founders are often still in med school, only practiced for a limited time, or never at all). This results in two problems – one of which the author notes – no understanding of workflow; the other being no real clinical efficacy for the product — meaning, they do not actually improve health, improve efficiency, or lower cost. Any physician will be able to lament the issues of self-reported data…

Instead of hanging out at gyms or restaurants building apps for diets or food I would recommend digital health entrepreneurs hang out in any casino in America around 1pm any day of the week – that is your audience. And until your product tests well with that group, you have no real shot.

This perspective from Jim Bloedau is also worth quoting., given how much of the rhetoric on healthcare and technology is focused on the dysfunctionality of the current system:

Who likes consuming healthcare? Nobody. How many providers have you heard say they wish they could spend more time in the office? Never. Because of this, the industry’s growth has been predicated on the idea that somebody else will do it all for me – employers will provide insurance and pay for it, doctors will provide care. This is also the driver of the traditional business model for healthcare that many pundits label as a “dysfunctional healthcare system.” Actually, the business of healthcare has been optimized as it has been designed – as a volume based business and is working very well.

Coming up to four years on, and from my own point of viewing having had further immersion in the health IT world, how does it stack up? Well, for one thing I seem not to hear the word “gamification” quite that much. There seems to be a realisation that having “clinical knowledge closely integrated” is not a nice to have have but an absolute sine qua non. Within the CCIO group and from my experience of the CCIO Summer school, there certain isn’t a sense that healthcare is going to be “easily fixed” by technology. Bob Wachter’s book and report also seem to have tempered much hype.

Yet an awful lot of Versel’s original critique and the responses he provoked still rings true about the wider culture and discussion of healthcare and technology, not in CCIO circles in my experience but elsewhere. There is still often a rather  inchoate assumption that the likes of the FitBit will in some sense transform things. As Cynical states above, in the majority of cases self-reported data is something there are issues with, (there are exceptions such as mood and sleep diaries, and Early Warning Signals systems in bipolar disorder, but there too a simplicity and judiciousness is key)

Re-reading his blog post I am also struck by his  lede, which was that mobile tech has enabled what could be described as the Axis of Sedentary to a far greater degree than it has enable the forces of exercise and healthy eating. Versel graciously spent some time on the phone with me prior to the EuroChallenges workshop linked to above and provided me with very many further insights. I would be interested to know what he makes of the scene outlined in his column now.