I have been thinking about the digital native / digital immigrant distinction and what about this dichotomy is assumed to be meaningful. As I understand the distinction, the difference is whether one has known “life without”. So if you were unaware of the world around you without Google, cell phones, or computers, you are a native. And, if you can remember punch cards or punch tape, coding in assembly, or waiting for your batch job to be run, you must be an immigrant. Actually, I am being a bit facetious. If you were alive and cognizant before the Internet, computers, cell phones, etc., you come to these devices and services unnaturally and are an immigrant.
It is kind of unclear whether this distinction is about positive or negative differences. Or, perhaps the the distinction proposes a combination of differences. As a distinction proposed as relevant to educators, how this difference is understood really matters. Unless we are assuming that all differences are positive, I reject the notion that educational practices MUST be adapted to suit the interests and aptitudes of natives. When a difference is negative, I think the appropriate response is to determine whether the capability can be developed or not, and if change is possible focus on improvement.
The simplistic distinction of “did you experience life without” misses many significant qualifications. If you have been there from the beginning, you have several important “context advantages”. You better understand how things work. Some think you do not have to know. For example, I do not have to understand fuel injection to drive a car. True enough. But, I do think having a broad background has advantages. I remember attempting to explain HTML tags to educators who seemed to be baffled by the notion of a “markup language”. I realized that my background offered a perspective they did not have. I did markup on a key punch machine when I wrote my dissertation. I was familiar with markup because I remembered word processing programs in which the markup would appear (bold, underline) as part of the text. Adding tags around text was not foreign in this new setting. It was part of using technology.
I think there is a more important aspect of context and that involves technology within culture. If one experiences the gradual integration of technology in various forms, one also can observe how we all have accommodated such tools into our lives. We have a sense of the inter-relationship between human behavior and technology. Often, we see trends that result in unanticipated negative consequences. I do not assume that sitting each evening staring at a big screen is the way life has to be. It does not seem rebellious to me that some young parents are concerned that their children need some alternatives. I understand that there are options. I understand such options as a native not as an immigrant. I do not have to learn about such alternatives to understand.
So, in keeping with this perspective, I offer some new phrases to describe the awareness of digital natives. If you want, I am collecting other descriptive phrases. My present list includes:
Late to the party
Better late than never
This is all magic to me.
