1.2 Digital Visitors and Residents
In his 2001 book Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Marc Prensky argued that “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.” (Presnkey, 2001). He went on to argue that the rest of us (I wasn’t quite 30 when the book came out) will never be quite as good at technology as those young “natives”.
When we assume that students know everything about using technology because of their year of birth however, we’re making a big, and likely wrong, assumption. Even if they know how to shoot a video and upload it to YouTube (and many of them don’t), do they know how to determine if Website is credible?
Also, when we assume that anyone who may be older than 30 or 40 doesn’t know how to use technology, or can’t learn to use it now because they didn’t grow up with it, we are again making a wrong assumption. Unfortunately, too many people have been hearing that they are "digital immigrants" or that they are simply too old to be trying out new technology, and they have come to believe it themselves.
David White Links to an external site. from University of Arts, London has been working on a project related to this idea. Instead of the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant" White talks of "digital residents" and "digital visitors" and avoids discussion of the age of the user, but rather focuses on the users comfort level with technology.
This week for our Google Hangout, we'll be speaking with David about his work in this area. A discussion forum has been set up where you can post your questions for David, but you can also tweet questions using the course hasthag #ilt_usask Links to an external site.. We will make sure that David sees your questions so that he can respond during the live Google Hangout.
Visitors and Residents
Discussion Post
For this discussion, watch this additional video from David White (see below) showing how to map out where you fall on a "visitors" and "residents" spectrum depending on the activities you're engaged in. Post a reflection of no more than 250 words about this experience to the discussion forum "Visitors and Residents Mapping Activity". Some questions you may wish to answer in your reflection include:
- What did you think of this exercise?
- What surprised you or what did you learn about yourself?
- How might you use this with your own students?
Respond to the posts of other participants in the course. Try to keep your responses under 200 words.