Posts tagged digital_natives
Forthcoming: Review of Literature on Net Generation Learners
Dec 6th
I have been hammering feverishly on my dissertation, which may or should be obvious given my last four posts. The focus of my dissertation is Computer Literacy Skills of Community College Learners. One upside to my dissertation process, in my opinion, is that it’s a “non-traditional” format; rather than the typical five chapter dissertation, I have to produce an introduction and a conclusion wrapped around three independent manuscripts prepared and ready for publication: seems to me to be a more useful process and product than a traditional dissertation. Currently, I’ve completed the first round of revisions on manuscript #1, a critical literature review; the abstract (as it stands at the moment) for that document is: More >
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Loading ...Who Misread @dtapscott’s Growing Up Digital?
Aug 31st
My hopeful dissertation topic focuses on computer literacy skills of community college learners; generally, there seems to be an assumption that early college learners are inherently tech-savvy and computer literate. I believe that assumption exists in the mainstream consciousness – this past week I heard a local morning show radio personality comment, “They [teenagers] are all tech-savvy.” At the very least, the assumption pervades much of higher education’s consciousness. Many examples exist, through news reports and public announcements, of curricular, budgetary, and policy decisions being made by educational institutions at all levels based on that assumption.
One of the sources cited by researchers in the field as being a core advocate of the inherently technology adept “net generation learner” is Donald Tapscott’s Growing Up Digital. I’ve been reading much of that text, with a focus on sections dedicated to “N-Gen” and learning.
In short, I believe many of the overstated assumptions regarding the technological skill of the Net Generation Learner may be inaccurately attributed to Tapscott. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Palfrey & Gasser’s Born Digital
Aug 23rd
Reading for my dissertation literature review, engaged Palfrey & Gasser’s Born Digital. Honestly, I was expecting nothing beyond more run of the mill net generation rhetoric; I certainly encountered some of that, but I also was pleasantly surprised by their chapter on “Learners.”
In the selected bibliography, Palfrey & Gasser note Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital as the inspiration for the text and place this text squarely in the same category of pursuit as previous net generation learner texts: Don Tapscott, Marc Prensky, and Oblinger & Oblinger.
Certainly, Palfrey & Gasser repeat the foundation of the “digital native” rhetoric: More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Dede does *not* advocate "Millenials"
Aug 17th
I know I’ve seen Chris Dede cited in reference to advocating or supporting the “net generation” or “millenials” argument: current early college age learners have distinct learning styles and digital expectations. After reading the piece I believe is cited most often, I believe those citing Dede in that manner have misread his work.
Another oversimplification of the generational frameworks for learning styles is seeing computers and telecommunications as a single medium that fosters a particular approach to learning . . . it’s an infrastructure that supports many media, including [such] disparate applications. (Dede, 2005, p. 6). More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Rate of Adoption Precludes "Natives?"
Jan 21st
A colleague is attending Educause Learning Initiative 2009 Annual Conference and is live blogging Michael Wesch’s keynote address. One of Wesch’s comments struck a nerve with a line of thought I’d heard recently elsewhere.
There are really no natives to the net. So many of the technologies are less than 4 years old. We are all in the same boat, faculty and students.
None of our current K-20 students have grown up with YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or iPods or RSS Aggregators or Virtual Environments etc. Many of the potentially, educationally disruptive technologies have surfaced with “Web 2.0″ in the last 3-5 years. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Are they really computer literate?
Sep 21st
At the beginning of my class this semester – college level Microcomputer Applications – I used Google Forms to deliver a survey and collect information about students: their life situation, computer skills, computer use experience and habits etc. Learner responses to questions provide at least some validation to the myth of the computer literate “digital native” discussed in this space previously.
How do my students rate their own computer literacy?
- Word Processing, Spreadsheet & Presentation applications are considered “core applications” by the IC3 definition of computer literacy.
- An “Introduction to Computers” curriculum – ostensibly to provide a foundation for computer literacy – typically teaches all four types of applications.
- and, those four types of applications form the core of the most commonly used office productivity suites.
How can a group of learners consider themselves to have better than average computer literacy skills when they rarely use these applications? My answer . . .? Either (a) our learners are not as computer literate as they (and many others) would like to think or (b) our institutional definitions of computer literacy are way off. Granted, this only considers one component of the IC3 definition of computer literacy (with the others being basic hardware knowledge and use of the internet), but I tend to think it’s the former. Your thoughts?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Discourse: "Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants"
Jul 18th
A forum post in one of my Ning networks highlighted this blog post by Rick Tanski, “BLC08 – Tainted by Digital Racism” which questions Marc Prensky’s choice of rhetoric when describing “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants.” I agree that a postmodern deconstruction of that characterization of technology users is easily justified and perhaps very necessary, but I believe the entire “digital native” rhetoric has created two other problems that are more specifically relevant to educators.
First, by establishing the term “digital native,” Prensky enabled the mythology of the inherently computer literate learner. Many, many educators have heard the term “digital native” and have translated that to mean that all Generation Y or Millenial learners are computer literate. Many younger learners absolutely know how to use certain technology tools or web applications: cell phones, text messaging, and MySpace or Facebook. However, that is the furthest thing from being “computer literate” – much less “information literate.” Knowing how to go to www.google.com and enter a search term is drastically different from being able to enter search terms that help you efficiently find what you need. Further, being a natural at Photoshop or Autocad or Excel or Facebook or text messaging on a phone keypad or any other specific applications does not constitute being computer literate or information literate. Being literate in those regards requires a much broader range of skills than those possessed by many “digital natives” I’ve observed.
Second, I believe Prensky’s work also spawned or contributed greatly to the misguided belief that younger learners learn differently than the learners before them – that learning styles have changed. My thoughts on this issue are posted here and fall into line with Rick’s comment: “By the way, teachers who struggle with new technologies are not new: did anyone else help out with the film projector, slide projector, opaque or ditto machines? I mean all the Web 2.0 items are projectors in themselves, right?” Even if our younger learners have grown up with technology all around them, that doesn’t mean they learn any differently than you or I; they just have new and different tools available to facilitate the process.
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