[Air-L] So-called Digital Natives - interesting newspaper article

Julian Hopkins j at julianhopkins.net
Wed Jan 21 17:14:51 PST 2009


The 'digital campus' podcast (which I would recommend to anyone on this
list) covered the same issue last September, if anyone is interested -
http://digitalcampus.tv/2008/09/24/episode-32-going-native/

I also find that many students are not as familiar with software as one
would expect, given all the hype (or hardware for that matter, one student
bought an iPod because she thought that she needed one to be able to listen
to *pod*casts). It seems to me that there are some people who are always
more curious about how software works, or who want to explore its different
possibilities, and those are the ones who become more proficient in tweaking
and (eventually) hacking programmes. Most people will use the basic
functions of what is presented to them, and not go much further than that;
for example, it's always surprised me how little many office workers know of
how to use Office Word or Excel.

I guess where the 'digital native' aspect may come in is that, where the
'immigrant' is probably more likely to want to stick with the programme they
know, the 'native' is more willing to try out new software/gadgets. This is
probably not because of an innate knowledge of the inner workings of
software or different logic, but because they are used to seeing new things
come out regularly. However, a corollary to that perhaps is that new
software and gadgets are likely to conform as much as possible to previous
interfaces and thus the need for the 'natives' to adapt to something new is
minimised. Overall, it will always be a minority who are willing to take
risks, innovate, etc.

Cheers,

Julian

++++++++++
Blog: www.julianhopkins.net
Skype: julhop
IM: jfprhopkins at hotmail.com

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:27:08 +1100
From: Robert Ackland <robert.ackland at anu.edu.au>
Subject: [Air-L] So-called Digital Natives - interesting newspaper
	article
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Message-ID: <497679EC.4020809 at anu.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

The following article in The Australian newspaper may be of interest to 
members of this list:

"The natives aren't quite so restless"
by Christoper Scanlon
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24939539-25192,00.html

An interesting look at the existence of so-called "digital natives", and 
implications for teaching technology at universities.

An excerpt from the article:

"Despite the hype about digital natives' technological skills, the 
reality is that most students don't come to class with technological 
knowledge pre-installed. The question is, why is there such a divergence 
between claims about digital natives and the realities of the classroom? 
The answer is partly a matter of class, commercial interest and confusion."

-- 
-------------------------------------
Dr Robert Ackland
Fellow and Masters Coordinator
Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute
The Australian National University

e-mail:   robert.ackland at anu.edu.au
homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php
project:  http://voson.anu.edu.au
ph./fax:  +61 2 6125 0312/+61 2 6125 2992
mail:     Coombs Building, 9
          Canberra, ACT 0200
          AUSTRALIA

Information about the Master of Social Research
(Social Science of the Internet specialisation):
http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php
-------------------------------------




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