Death of the Digital Native

Just two weeks ago I was referring to myself as a digital immigrant in a blog post.

Then last week I heard Brad King speak at TEDxCincy. And now this week I want to retract my classification as it reinforces the term digital native.

In King's TED talk, "Telling Stories on the World," he details how technology is changing the way we tell stories. And one of my favorite points from his talk is when he declares the death of the digital native.

"It gives me great pleasure to note that there is no such thing as a digital native. Many Americans grew up speaking English. It's their native tongue. Yet they still study the subject in school. So why wouldn't students that grew up immersed in digital technology also need to study accordingly?" paraphrased from my notes vs. a verbatim quote. RELATED: Shut your digital native pie hole.

Education on Digital Issues
Recent cases of sexting and cyber bullying, as well as the constant concern of privacy in a world where Facebook frequently changes the rules, remind us how important this digital education has become.

Is the term digital native well-intended? Sure. But in some instances I wonder if it becomes an artificial excuse to avoid acclimating to the changes brought on by digital technology over the years.

We have a responsibility to teach younger generations how it all works. If we try and block access to keep it out of the schools we are not protecting students over the long term. We’re ensuring their skills won't be as relevant.

The biggest issues of social media and their use in a school setting are also their opportuniity. We need to educate instead of simply trying to avoid it altogether. 


Digital Natives uploaded by nudevinyl
Cross-posted to my work blog, Social Study

Comments

[Mike Boehmer]

Interesting post. I get great joy in sharing knowledge about social media marketing with my 11-year-old, who in turn offers great insights to me! We need to nurture those tech-savvy youngsters, so they can teach us.

PS: I've always thought of you as the Digital Chief, a top leader of our Cincinnati social media tribe. And the natives are restless, always wanting to learn and try more.:-)

[Mihaela (Dr. V)]

amen.

I see my students (even the very digitally savvy ones) making huge mistakes online. It's not just button pressing, it's communicating effectively (and safely; and strategically) - takes a while to learn.

[Brad King]

@Mihaela: I refer to my students as "button pushers." They are certainly good with interfaces (as are all of us who grew up with technology), but if something goes wrong, they freak out. Or if the button does something different than what they want, they freak out. Most worrying: they don't know how to critically assemble multiple technologies to do things beyond what any single technology can do. (e.g. use twitter search to pull rss feeds into a reader to archive/search and re-assemble information)

At least until we teach them :)

[Michael Rubin]

Outstanding post, Kevin. This quote is killer: "We have a responsibility to teach younger generations how it all works. If we try and block access to keep it out of the schools we are not protecting students over the long term. We're ensuring their skills won't be as relevant."

Frankly, you could make the same argument for companies that block Social Media access to their employees.

[buy essay]

Amazing post! Thanks a lot for sharing.