Prensky and Boyd

What do you make of the (divergent) positions of Boyd and Prensky?  What do you hear each of them saying about who youth are?  Where do you stand on the “digital native” terminology?

I found the ideas of both Prensky and Boyd to be fascinating.  On any given day, I can feel fairly tech-savvy and then completely out of touch with the latest apps (educational and social).  I have begun to realize that I feel more tech savvy when it comes to being in my classroom in front of 5 and 6 year olds.  The technology in class is pretty minimal.  We use I pads (though not till mid-year), I have a mimio board, and I can screen share.  I use some of the technology resources from our science kits, and I use Class Dojo to communicate with families. But in day to day teaching, I don’t use specific technology tools when I am working with my students. I am probably somewhere between a Stage 2 or Stage 3 on Scott Noon’s framework.  Since moving to virtual learning, I am definitely more in Stage 3 as I am learning about more tools to improve my distance (and hopefully, in person) teaching. 

I got quite a kick out of Prensky’s comparison of Digital Native vs. Digital Immigrant.  The part that made me laugh was the slide that discussed the Digital Immigrant Accent.  As I sat down to listen to the Slide Deck, I grabbed my pencil and paper so I could take notes.  I literally turned to paper before technology because that is my go-to form of note-taking.  I didn’t realize how much of, in Prensky’s eyes, a Digital Immigrant I was!

 

But Prensky has some really interesting  points in describing characteristics of a Digital native.  I see first hand how quick 5 and 6 year olds maneuver technology.   They are eager to help me with the technology glitches I stumble across.  I also see how impatient young children have become because they are so used to everything appearing so quickly before their eyes.  Sometimes I feel their natural curiosity and sense of experimentation isn’t being fostered because they can easily find a quick answer online.  Prensky accurately describes how older people talk about “sending a friend request” versus “friending” someone.  I only recently started using Instagram and even more recently, Snapchat.  My 19 year old nephew acts like I am a dinosaur!  But I am a dinosaur that is still learning… and learning from a Native.  That is what I believe to be at the core of Prensky’s work.

Which brings me to Boyd’s work.  From my eyes, Boyd looks at our responsibility to help children navigate technology safely and wisely.  She understands that children are exposed to more technology and at much earlier ages than adults, but that “does not mean that they inherently have the knowledge or perspective to critically examine what they consume” (boyd, 2015, p. 177). This stuck out to me because it reminded me that while I may not know everything that I need to know about technology, I have the advantage of age and experience and,  hopefully, the wisdom that comes from it.  I need to not only teach my students that academics but also how to think about learning.  This includes how to be critical and ask questions of everything they are learning and seeing.  I would expect my student scientists to ask critical questions about a science topic, but am I really doing what I need to do to teach them about technology and website safety?  “Educators have an important role to play in helping youth navigate networked publics and the information-rich environments that the internet supports. Familiarity with the latest gadgets or services is often less important than possessing the critical knowledge to engage productively with networked situations, including the ability to control how personal information flows and how to look for and interpret accessible information”(boyd, 2015, p. 180).  Maybe Kindergarten isn’t the right place or time for that, but I imagine that there is more that I can do.

So, as is true for many areas of my life, I find myself in the middle.  I, too, believe that I can learn a lot from children.  I need to learn how to listen better and be more present and aware.  But I also need to be sure to teach my students and children how to critically look at information in the digital age and look for credible sources of information. 

  

Boyd, D. (2015). It's complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.