Digital Natives and Digital Knowledge - not necessarily a matched set
The terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" (as coined by Marc Prensky) have migrated from education circles to publishing and are nearly ubiquitous labels to help differentiate between folks who have grown up with digital tech (the natives) and those of us who developed in a non-digital environment (the immigrants).
Teachers don't always read the fine print in the definition of "digital natives." Digital natives have digital expectations, not necessarily digital skills. In other words, that flock of students that some of us keep expecting - the one in which all the students can hand-code Web pages and understand the underlying structures behind our digtial world - they're not coming (unless perhaps you're teaching in a program that draws folks who appreciate tech).
By analogy, we don't expect that most folks who grew up with television to understand its physics, electronics or even hardware assembly.
A colleague in Australia, Kim Flintoff, expressed this phenomenon (and expanded on it) as follows:
Digital natives may be different from digital immigrants, but they're not necessarily more knowledgeable about the digital. This may be akin to the current lack of knowledge of U.S. high school students regarding the First Amendment (according to this Knight study) - just because someone grows up with something, doesn't mean that he or she understands it, if it's not taught - but that's blog entry for another day.
Teachers don't always read the fine print in the definition of "digital natives." Digital natives have digital expectations, not necessarily digital skills. In other words, that flock of students that some of us keep expecting - the one in which all the students can hand-code Web pages and understand the underlying structures behind our digtial world - they're not coming (unless perhaps you're teaching in a program that draws folks who appreciate tech).
By analogy, we don't expect that most folks who grew up with television to understand its physics, electronics or even hardware assembly.
A colleague in Australia, Kim Flintoff, expressed this phenomenon (and expanded on it) as follows:
The “prosumer” ... or “produser” [sic] ... may be able to rip, mix and burn but we can’t assume they can grip, fix and turn.
This notion of GRIP, FIX and TURN – the capacity for control, the capacity to remedy, the capacity to reposition...
Digital natives may be different from digital immigrants, but they're not necessarily more knowledgeable about the digital. This may be akin to the current lack of knowledge of U.S. high school students regarding the First Amendment (according to this Knight study) - just because someone grows up with something, doesn't mean that he or she understands it, if it's not taught - but that's blog entry for another day.
posted by Prof. G. at
10:52 AM (permalink)
2 Comments:
One reason they might not spot the fine print, is that it doesn't appear in anything written by Prensky - or at least not anything I read of his!
Good post.
By
Daniel, at 3:47 PM
Thanks!
It's true that Prensky doesn't provide this warning. I suppose he didn't figure it was necessary. I think that we educators read a bit too much into his writing. Whoops.
One of our listserv colleagues recommended this article by the Futurelab's Martin Owen. I've used it in a training program for a past client. Good stuff.
By
Prof. G., at 4:19 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home