On programming the video recorder

I did the BBC's 2005 online quiz about whether I was a digital citizen or not.

Well, the questions I knew the answers to, I knew.

And some of those I didn't know rather gave it away with their confusers - Christopher Wren has not been designing anything much recently - not since St Pauls and many beautiful churches, and Richard Rogers only does buildings (question 3).

Are we seriously expected not to have heard of them?

The other questions I had no clue about, but undoubtedly most of the information has been superseded over the last 3 years.

My score was 7 and the verdict was "probably still have problems programming the video recorder."

On the contrary.

I don't have a video recorder - or a TV - so I have no problems programming it.

It's not incapacity but lack of interest in almost everything that gets broadcast. (I do watch DVDs on the laptop).

I know the quiz was just a bit of frivolity, but why so insulting?

And, given that most of the information will by now be long out of date, what is it doing on this course anyway?

A classic confusion between the medium (the high tech equipment involved and the no doubt complex skills required to press the right keys on the remote control) and the message (in this case, the drivel that passes for 95% of TV output). Oh well, it's the Beeb so they're probably rather in favour of the drivel they broadcast...

Heyho.

Just call me an old fogey and have done with it - but it doesn't inspire.

Now, where did I put me cosy cardie?

A Question of Citizenship

The course materials include a 2001 article by Mark Perensky which talks about having "digital citizenship" or being a "digital immigrant".

A curious choice of metaphor (are no immigrants citizens?).

I wonder whether I could be described as a "digital refugee", or with a nod to the tabloid press, a "digital bogus asylum seeker."

If we have to play that game I would hope one day to consider myself a "dual nationality holder", with one passport from the digi-realm and the other from the world of what I'd like to call "heritage technology" - ie books, pens, paper, etc.

Well I suppose it was just a modish sort of terminology, but I prefer the driving license metaphor.

I don't actually hold a car driving license either, and only a fraction of an ICDL, but at least it clearly refers to skills which are either acquired or not acquired.

In the meantime, another aspect of illiteracy strikes me every time I open this blog. Because of where I am based, the front page always appears in Arabic first. I can read a couple of words of Arabic (generally when I already know what they mean: it's the same with Thai).

I've now located where the "change language on this page" point is. There is no icon but I can remember the place - which will be fine, until the site gets revamped.

This is part of the problem most users face, and I'm sure "cut off dates" (Perensky's sensitive euphemism for age) will not make any difference.

No matter where people come in on this thing, they will constantly have to be relearning and unlearning as things get changed, "upgraded", and generally superseded by other things.

Of course the older we are the harder it is to learn new stuff - but that applies to everything else as well.

A sixteen-year old relative of mine has been grumbling about the changes to the Facebook interface...