One of themes that spans across the readings for this week about teaching digital history, is the notion that “digital natives” (the generation of students who have grown up with computers) are expected by their professors to be comfortable and confident in their use of technology and media. However, despite knowing how to use Facebook, YouTube and other social media, these students are lacking in their digital literacy skills. Understanding, interpreting, evaluating and creating media is not the same as consuming media, and are skills that need to be honed by future digital historians.

Through several case studies, we can see how professors are attempting to teach students these vital skills, with varying degrees of success. At first glance, T. Mills Kelly’s experiment of having his class create an historical hoax struck me as a bad idea. However, throughout the course, the students were able to learn media literacy skills by being the hoax creators themselves. The fact that the hoax was meant to be revealed at the end the semester helped sway me into believing that this tactic was clearly more educational rather than mischievous. However, the end result was much more convincing. The students had actually learned how easy it is for hoaxes to fool people, how important it is to check sources, and actual maritime history about the Lower Chesapeake during the post-Civil War era by concocting a fake researcher who has discovered the “Last American Pirate.” While reading the chapter, I was actually glad to see that the students’ hoax had worked so well as to trick the academic world of historians, as I am sure that reinforced to the students the benefits of information and media literacy.

Another hands-on experiment that didn’t go as well as the professor had hoped, was Allison Marsh’s attempt to teach Omeka to her museum studies students. In trying to prepare her students for the real world that is increasingly more reliant on digital technology, Marsh found that her students weren’t as tech-savvy as she had thought. Omeka isn’t extremely hard to use, and I’m finding it very useful in my halfway completed final project, but for students who haven’t had to create metadata or lack basic graphic design knowledge, I can see how it could be a burden for some students. I think Marsh is correct in telling her students that they no longer have a choice in working with technology and digital media, as there is no going back to purely analog museum exhibits. From my own personal experience, if I visit a museum’s webpage and they don’t offer any type of virtual exhibit, my interest immediately wanes. I’m curious to see how Marsh’s 10 year project unfolds, and I hope future classes are still required to build some form of digital exhibit, if only to stay relevant within the public history field.

While it can appear baffling that digital natives are not prone to using technology for educational purposes as much as we want them to, I think there is room to grow. If more professors take on new approaches to using technology and digital media in the classroom by applying more active learning techniques such as Kelly, Marsh, Rabinowitz and Trepanier have done, the more capable students will become in utilizing technology and media in their own research. Some of these students may go on to work as digital historians and possibly go on to teach their own students, hopefully passing on the lessons they have learned from their professors who have been able to bridge the gap between using and consuming media.