tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10303765.post3201714859867053579..comments2023-09-26T10:56:39.429-04:00Comments on Techist: A Blog about Technology, History and Teaching: Innovation, Open-Source, and CMSsJeffrey McClurkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13118204828598680985noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10303765.post-41844511371850089492007-03-02T02:10:00.000-05:002007-03-02T02:10:00.000-05:00Jerry,My initial response to your comment is that ...Jerry,<BR/>My initial response to your comment is that it's not students who need the stability, it's faculty and staff who do. A number of people in those positions get frustrated by changing interfaces (even just because of updates/upgrades) to the point that they cease to use such technology (or at least they gripe about its lack of usability).<BR/><BR/>But as I think about the basic navigation problems that even some students have (e.g., figuring out the rules of wiki use as compared to a discussion board), I begin to think that you may be onto something. Since students (and the rest of us) are increasingly interacting with information via web-based interfaces (which come in a variety of flavors with a variety of navigational rules--technical and social) then we have a responsibility to work with those students to foster an ability to adapt to these various environments within which they will have to work in college and beyond.<BR/><BR/>To bring it back to the topic of Jerry's post and my response, since virtually none of these environments will look like an enterprise CMS, exposing students to an innovative array of interfaces becomes one obvious way to "foster that sort of" adaptability.Jeffrey McClurkenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13118204828598680985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10303765.post-66211248958441071422007-02-25T22:27:00.000-05:002007-02-25T22:27:00.000-05:00Stability is important, no doubt. But it may not ...Stability is important, no doubt. But it may not be as important as we think.<BR/><BR/>Example - how many students need training before they can use Facebook? I venture to say, not many (or any). Why, then, do they use it so well? Because they figure it out - even if interfaces are a bit different, they can learn it incrementally.<BR/><BR/>The big problem I see here may be more generational than technical. Net-Gen students don't mind clicking around until they figure something out. The ability to navigate different interfaces for different online services is just par for the course. Is that not a skill of value, just like library card catalog research skills were at one point in the not too-distant past?<BR/><BR/>The real question is how do you foster that sort of skill in a different generation of users?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13378294420535267284noreply@blogger.com