Week 1 - Am I a Digital Immigrant?

Digital nativism is the belief that those who have grown up in a world full of digital devices have a major advantage over the rest of us, not only in using those devices but also in the increased cognitive skills that using those devices allegedly confers.

Personal Research Objective:
Based on the latest research in neurobiology, there is no longer any question that stimulation of various kinds actually changes brain structures and affects the way people think.

There is also no doubt that children today are being socialized in a vastly different way than previous generations. One study stated that by the time the average child leaves college he would have spent over 10,000 hours playing videogames, sent 200,000 emails and instant messages, watched over 20,000 hours of TV, seen over 500,000 commercials and, maybe, at the very most, spent 3,000 hours reading books. (This study is now over three years old.)

Considering these facts, I am interested in investigating these so-called Digital Natives and uncovering what impacts new media might be having on their cognitive and social development. I will also explore what we can do as Instructional Designers to create products and curriculums that might help this new generation of learners to realize their full potential.

Over the course of this semester, I will attempt to answer these three questions:

1. Do you believe that we have to design, develop and deliver instruction differently for the so-called Digital Natives?
2. Are there differences in learning expectations and styles or can we just design good instruction and know that it meets all generational needs?
3. What are some of the current or theorized best practices for engaging and instructing digital natives?
   

To kick things off I decided to re-read the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Mark Presky that helped start the debate.

Here is his definiton of what makes up a digital native.

I’ve coined the term digital native to refer to today’s students (2001). They are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. I refer to those of us who were not born into the digital world as digital immigrants. We have adopted many aspects of the technology, but just like those who learn another language later in life, we retain an “accent” because we still have one foot in the past. We will read a manual, for example, to understand a program before we think to let the program teach itself.

Here is a video that provides an expression of who these children are.

Age 1- First commercial PC

Age 3 - First cell phone

Age 9 - Internet

Age 14 - Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. Built on engage and connect versus find.

Digital natives have always had access and engagement. It’s part of their reality.