Mcluhan cont.

From "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan", Playboy Magazine (March 1969 copyright, 1994 by Playboy)
"If education is to become relevant to the young of this electric age, we must also supplant the stifling, impersonal and dehumanizing multiversity with a multiplicity of autonomous colleges devoted to an in-depth approach to learning. This must be done immediately, for few adults really comprehend the intensity of youth's alienation from the fragmented mechanical world and its fossilized educational system...If we don't adapt our educational system to their needs and values, we will see only more dropouts and more chaos."

This quote from the article made me think of the Henry Jenkins article on digital immigrants. The generation gap between teacher and student who have grown up in very different technological times. Most schools, depending on proper funding, have ventured into this new electronic age with computers easily accesible to students starting at elementary levels. I was first introduced to having a computer in the learning environment when I was in the sixth grade (fifteen years ago to be exact!) and it definitely was a learning experience for both me and my teacher, we seemed to be learning together and it was easy to see she wasn't completely comfortable with this new way of teaching.
Many educators have classes that take place online which can sometimes make getting through higher education a bit more flexible and easier for the "muti-tasking millenial." But it isn't so easy if the instuctor is a digital immigrant and doesn't exactly understand how the whole system works. I took an online course last summer and it was pretty frustrating because the instructor was new to the Blackboard system, I think it's called, and was constantly one step behind in figuring out how it worked. She had problems posting assignments, tests, dates due, basically everything important. It got to the point where frustrated students would email her advice and directions on how to do things right and some even dropped the class.
So, although many educators are excelling at incorporating ways to connect to their young students, some still need to get with the program.