Don't Prensky with my Boyd

      

      After watching the slide deck discussing the thoughts of Marc Prensky in regards to digital natives and digital immigrants, I thought what he had to say made a lot of sense.  I often feel like an immigrant to digital technology when I look at my students and see how much easier it seems to come to them than it does to me.  On the surface these labels seem innocuous, and make a great deal of sense to those of us who would be considered digital immigrants.  If you are like me, all the kids seem better at digital technology than you are, so it is easy to accept the label of immigrant and just assume the younger generations are all natives, inherently better at all this "stuff".

    Shortly after watching the slide deck presentation I began reading the chapter by Danah Boyd.  I am glad I read this after watching the slide deck, and not before.  Danah Boyd does a very good job of picking apart many of the problems with Marc Prensky's line of thinking in regards to the immigrant/native issue.  Besides the potential for the terms being offensive to some for cultural reasons, Boyd argues that accessibility and privilege play a huge role in varying levels of competence with certain technologies among the younger generations.  Not all of them spend their 

childhoods with the same access to technology for a variety of reasons, often related to socioeconomic status of a family, but also for any number of other reasons.  She compares students with access to home computers to those students who access a computer a local library that has many blocks and filters limiting the extent of its use.  the student using the technology at home with unfettered access or time constraints will naturally become more adept at using the technology than the student who has limited access for limited time.  

    As I read Boyd's arguments, I began to realize that I was being close minded in my approach to thinking about this.  I had called younger generations digital natives for years, and had no idea where that even came from until we had class today.  I just viewed my students as being "a lot better at this stuff" than I am.  I never stopped to really watch how their skills differentiated from student to student.  I just viewed them as being better than I was.  

    Marc Prensky and Danah Boyd vary greatly in their views of the nature versus nurture debate when it comes to digital technology.  Prensky insinuates that because this technology exists, and younger generations are born into it, that they are natives and instinctually better with it due to their ability to access it at younger ages than the immigrants were.  Boyd counters this argument by clearly stating that not all children have the same access to technology for numerous reasons.  The financial cost of acquiring the most cutting edge tools for digital technology would greatly lend to socioeconomic status lending itself directly to the access debate.  Prensky presents more of a nature argument while Boyd's argument relies on how one is nurtured on technology through a person's level of access to it. 

    After contemplating the ideas of both of these authors, I have to agree with Danah Boyd more than Marc Prensky.  Prensky's ideas are definitely more in line with how I was thinking for a number of years, but that is before Boyd had me considering factors that contribute to the development of digital skills in children.  I was also impressed with her explanation of the value of Wikipedia.  Like most teachers, I was told from almost the first day of teaching that I should not allow students to use that a source on any assignment.  I have stuck to that for 18 years, and Boyd has me reconsidering that as well after giving an overview of the extensive review process that edits go through on the site.  The Boyd reading has definitely made me feel that I need to be a little more open minded in regards to just about everything she discusses in this chapter.  I do believe after reading her article that, although the students all seem to be better at using technology than I am, it is not because they are digital natives.  They are better at than I am because I do not have the level of interest in it that they do, even though I have unlimited access, and their abilities with it will vary depending on their access to it as they have grown up.  I plan on watching them more closely next year to see if I can begin to notice differences in how they navigate the technology we are using.