Beyond Digital Natives

Chapter 10:

"...young children are 'growing up in a digital world and develop a wide range of skills, knowledge and understanding of this world from birth.'"

I found this quote to be interesting because it shed a positive light on a digital native. It portrayed the benefits of being a digital native and expressed the attributes that one may gain from being a digital native. The vast use of technology in young kids, even from birth, is expanding the portals of knowledge available to young kids. Even an infant that can see the bright light of a technology tool can tell that they are intrigued, and try to touch and play with it. Even if they do not know what they are doing, they are expanding their knowledge of that tool. Overall, Chapter 10 was my favorite chapter that I have yet to read in this text.

Chapter 11: 

"Overall, the findings suggest that rather than a homogenous population of always connected digital natives, young people's technology activities and interests are widely varying, beyond a core set of common activities involving communication and information retrieval."

I strongly agree with the above quote from Chapter 11. Just as children before digital media had a wide range of interests and hobbies, digital natives have that as well. We should not generalize digital natives as using their technologies for one or two common reasons. Learners are constantly finding new things to use the internet for, whether it is fun, informative, something to pass the time with, or all three.

Chapter 12: 

"We identify digital natives as a population, not a generation, of young people who use technology in relatively advanced ways. In order to be classified by this term, a young person has to meet three criteria. First, they were born after 1980. ... Second, they have access to digital technologies. ... Last, and most crucially, digital natives are those with the skills to use these digital technologies in relatively sophisticated ways."

I liked this quote, although particularly long, because it very directly defined what it was like to be a digital native. I like that they waited until the end of the book to do this, because it allowed the reader to really form their own opinion before they read the definition. I also like that they make it clear in their conclusion of the book that the term digital natives is in fact not to describe a generation, but only a population of that generation.

The meme above shows one way that formal schooling can help develop digital literacies. I learned to use EBSCOHost in my high school english class and I use it to this day. I loved, and still do, that it provides the correct citation for all of their articles in multiple formats.