I don’t immediately consider myself to be a digital native and this fact was made abundantly clear during this week’s tool exploration. I think I only recognized two maybe three of the tools that were recommend to try out, but please don’t tell anyone, lest my membership in this cohort be revoked. This is of course an exaggeration, but it illustrates the problem with these terms and believing that that everyone born after a certain date has an innate understanding of technology. I came across this video from PBS Digital Studios which explores the question of whether digital natives actually exist.
But more serious than the question of existence is whether there is a danger in thinking that digital natives don’t need to be taught how to use technology? I think the answer is a resounding yes. The video argues that no one is born a fluent speaker of any language, whether it’s computers or Swahili; it must be learned, through immersion and practice. I also enjoyed that the video touched on the theme of access that I blogged about in my last post. It states:
“[computers] are a huge part of our everyday life but they are a privilege that not everyone has total access to, and if they do, access doesn't come prepackaged with understanding.”It can be tempting to want to ascribe these intuitive skills and penchant for all things technology to a generation born in the age of the Internet based on broad assumptions about their seemingly constant use of these tools; however, it is a risky practice, especially when it comes to education. Just because members of younger generations may be surrounded by technology that didn’t exist for previous generations, we shouldn’t assume that proximity is synonymous with proficiency nor even preference. In this week’s reading, Crook (2012) notes that despite the push to embrace Web 2.0 opportunities for engaging this digital generation, the evidence suggests that students are not as inclined to take advantage of them and that their “engagement is biased towards consumption rather than production” (pg. 65). While these tools can provide new opportunities, as educators, we should not assume that students will take them up automatically and without guidance.
Finally, I came across this article which argues that the digital native rhetoric has been perpetuated by proprietors of educational technology who seek to profit by selling solutions to this problem of connecting with a new generation. If we are to believe that digital natives exist, then we accept the idea that members of the digital-savvy generation think and learn differently than students that have come before them, and that is perhaps the biggest myth of all.
References:
Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946
Prensky, Marc (October 2001). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". On the Horizon. 9 (5): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816
Sadowski, J. (2014, July 9). The “Digital Native,” a profitable myth. Retrieved from https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-digital-native-a-profitable-myth
This is a phenomenal post! I agree with you here on multiple topics. I would not consider myself a "digital native" even though I was born after 1980. I do not think I have a complete understanding of technology or social media, and contribute the bit of knowledge that I do have to my Dad, not considered a "Digital Native", yet runs his own IT company. I have students who were born in the 2000s and they definitely need to be taught about technology. I was naive when I first started teaching to think that 6th grade students would not need to much guidance when it came to using computers, but they do! They do not understand how to troubleshoot and do not know how to properly interact online with peers.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important as educators to not give this term, "digital native", too much weight when incorporating technology and web 2.0 into our classrooms. Students, no matter what age should be taught how to use technology.
Another thing is to consider how intuitive many of the experiences with technology have been. For example, my grandmother who has no concept of anything computer wise, very quickly learnt to use Facebook on an iPad. But the reality is, in a workplace, few pieces of technology are that intuitive and many require quite a bit of learning to take place before someone can become proficient. That's why the young man/woman who grew up glued to an iPad and goes home each night to play computer games might struggle just as much to learn a program like Excel as the generation before them.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, yes. All that it means is that you were born in a time when the technology was present. It doesn't mean you have any special skills or affinity for it.
ReplyDeleteAs a pre-1980 person, I am often teaching digital natives and have it affirmed time and again that I know more than many of them do about technology, how it works, and various communication and social elements of its use.