Digital Natives
"digital natives," = the generation who has grown up with digital technology as a part of their everyday lives.
(frequently opposed to Digital Immigrants_
Description
"Today’s students - K through college - represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.
It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors [emphasis original]. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize. “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures, “says Dr. Bruce D. Berry of Baylor College of Medicine. As we shall see in the next installment, it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed - and are different from ours - as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed. I will get to how they have changed in a minute.
What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.
The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn - like all immigrants, some better than others - to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot in the past. [What is wrong with that? -ed] The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. [What’s wrong with RTFM? That’s how I learned my trade! -ed] Today’s older folk were “socialized” differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.
There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you - an even “thicker” accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). I’m sure you can think of one or two examples of your own without much effort. My own favorite example is the “Did you get my email?” phone call. Those of us who are Digital Immigrants can, and should, laugh at ourselves and our “accent.” (original source unknown, but cited in [1]
Survey
According to EDC, these students have technical acumen beyond any previous generation. They are characterized by their ability to "leverage the internet to the highest degree conceivable" and are energized by technology well past the point of most digital "immigrants"--that is, older learners forced to adapt from the analog age.
"The Certiport survey validated many of our observations that, among digital natives, there is a group of 'Power Users' of ICT," said Joyce Malyn-Smith, director of strategic initiatives for education, employment, and community programs for EDC. "This group [is] in tune with what is needed for success in the 21st century, exhibiting many of the collaborative learning, analytical thinking, and problem-solving interests that are sought by today's employers.
Malyn-Smith said those who operate as Power Users exhibit "engineer-level thinking that we don't normally expect [students] to have until they enter post-secondary engineering programs." (http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6087)
More information
Comment at [2]