I’ve bounced some digital immigrant/native ideas around a few times. Now I have one more thing to add.
When I was young my sister had dolls that spoke. This was so amazing! You pulled a string in the doll’s neck and as it recoiled the doll said, “Hi Ma-ma” or some other short phrase. Later the dolls would say a series of phrases, changing with each pull-of-the-string. Now my daughters have My e-Pets and Webkinz. Next comes this video:
It seems that the ‘Immigrant/Native’ argument is moot. I called the digital range in competency/capability of students a spectrum, not a dichotomy, (I think the correct word should have been continuum -note the reflection/comments on the post to see why I now think ‘spectrum’ is better than ‘continuum’). The fact is students can’t be lumped into general categories such as this. George Siemens summarizes this point better than I can, so read his post, and I’ll move on to the point of this post.
There is an issue of ‘digital exposure’ that many (but not all) of today’s kids have that simply wasn’t available when we were young. Despite my new distaste for the ‘digital native’ catch phrase, I am back to liking my Batman/Borg quote:
“I come from the Batman era, adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek, assimilating technology into their lives.”
My daughters interact with their toys in ways that I never could. In the same vein, two year old Paige from the above video will expect her toys to interact with her, to provide her with choices that I never had. Does it not follow that she will expect the same interaction and engagement in school?
Basically this is about ‘exposure to’ and ‘integration with’ digital technology at a young age as opposed to ‘adaptation to’ digital technology later on in life.
When Paige is 9, she will have peers that instant meesage each other on their PDA‘s… they will be more likely to communicate online at a younger age… they will be more likely to connect to like-minded social groups digitally. They will be continually exposed to ‘new technology’ that they won’t ever remember living without. (Technology and tools that we name, and they participate with.)
Meanwhile, I will continue promoting the value of integrating technology into the classroom to teachers who have “enough on their plate already”. I will offer out some ‘delicious‘ tools for their utility belts… while Paige plays with an iPhone and learns to connect to the world around her in ways many of us are now learning about… learning side-by-side with a two year old.
Originally posted: December 11th, 2007Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: In any given Grade 8 class, I have had students at a Grade 4 to Grade 10 competency in Math. The gap has been equally as large in writing and reading skills… and it follows that I will have similar competency level issues with students’ abilities in connecting and communicating digitally. Digital exposure will lead to greater digital competency, but that competency can be very focused or limited in scope. For some, (like the students I highlighted in the reflection on a recent post), digital exposure has sparked an interest in understanding how computers, technology, and/or the internet work. These students will be digitally competent in most, if not all, areas. For others, competency will be very limited and demonstrated, for example, in the ability to play games, even ones that they have never played before, at a competent level very quickly. Yet others will be able to text messages without needing to look at their phone, and yet find themselves lost when trying to embed a video onto a blog. We’ll have both Batman-like and Borg-like students in our classes. – – – – – The Digital Immigrant/Digital Native dichotomy is untenable. Gaps in Digital Exposure and Digital Competence will be no different than the gaps we see in basic skills or content areas when we enter a classroom. |
This is a great video. When she gets to school she will have a hard time accepting traditional educational tools…notebook, paper, pencils and crayons. But what about those kids whose parents do not have an iPhone or a computer? What will happen if the children who do not have access to technology are her classmates? Who will it impact the most? Sorry for the fat fingers.