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Discussion: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
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PaulSeiler |
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Sep 15 2008, 3:19 PM EDT
Has anyone seen the research to support these claims? I am sceptical that humans have fundamentally changed in the way they think and process information within a few years or decades. Seems to me that these changes might take a tad longer.
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Keyword tags:
Digital Immigrants
Digital Natives
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SIMKathy |
1. RE: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Sep 18 2008, 4:25 PM EDT
I too have been looking for this kind of information but I have not seen anything definitive. But I do see information about divided attention such as the ACRLog below.....What To Tell Students About Distractions http://acrlog.org/2008/09/05/what-to-tell-students-about-distractions/ Do you find this valuable? |
carolynstuart |
2. RE: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Sep 18 2008, 6:02 PM EDT
Ian Dukes has done some interesting work using brain imaging and how repeated exposure to digital tools (he used playstations I think) actually alters the hard wiring in the brain. He asserts that our young people's brains are uniquely wired as a result of their use of digital tools. Many commentators are now questioning whether there is much difference between young digital users and the more mature ones. As digital technologies pervade more and more of our lives it would seem that the gap between the natives and the immigrants is closing. Whatever the answer I observe as a parent that my kids are much quicker and more intuitive around new digital tools than I am.
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amrktr |
3. RE: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Sep 21 2008, 4:05 AM EDT
I have had a discussion with Mark Prensky over this as there is no evidence that I can see other than anecdotal (The Pew Internet Reports et all). One of the issues is the syndrome of mid level myopia; where we see a single child that can appear to multi-task (it is not physiologically possible to thoughtfully think about two ideas at once for any gender :-) . and then any child we see with an iPod we assume that they are also doing all these other tasks. We tend to view a small sample (the micro) and extrapolate to the macro (large sample) assuming that what one can do all can do. Most youth have no idea how to upload to uTube or doing anything with or to their photos and videos on their cameras and they certainly don't now what they can do with their bluetooth capabilities of their phones. Using fMRI and MRI scans as a representation of thinking has been called into question (see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-phrenology) and increasingly neuroscience is realising that the many assumptions that were made around fRMI scanning have now added up to a "fuzzy picture at best" of what the brain is actually doing. Increasingly we see the brain as a holographic environment and this would explain how half a brain can be removed with remarkably little effect (see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-when-half-brain-better-than-whole). What we do know now is that we know far less than we thought we did, hence taking anecdotal observations and adding a catchy byline can turn into an urban myth extremely quickly. this does not belittle the great work that Mark Presnsky has done but it just shows we must be ever vigilant around such processes. Mark Treadwell 2 out of 2 found this valuable. Do you? |
simold |
4. RE: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Oct 30 2008, 6:45 AM EDT
From an evolutionary perspective, human thinking will change fundamentally when those who cope with digital tools well have more children than those who do not....But seriously, if there was good evidence that digital tools improved cognition or student learning, then we would be having this information crammed down our throats. There are many vested interests in showing that computers are good for learning, but little evidence. PISA, for example, shows a negative effect of computer use on student results, both by individual and by country. Recent American studies on reading show something similar. As for the idea that kids are native and we are immigrants - this is bunk. As Mike Wesch (http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch) says, "There are no natives here". Blogging, YouTube, Flickr, VoiceThread, (etc. etc.) all this stuff is so new that no-one has really grasped its potential, let alone children. I work in a high school where all the kids have grown up in homes with computers and internet connections, but their 'digital competancy' is mostly pretty low. They have to learn, just like the rest of us. Do you find this valuable? |
