What I believe...

 Both Prensky, and Boyd, expressed ideas of young people’s ability and creativity in relation to technology and their education. I found that they both bring strong points to this argument of “Digital Native” vs “Digital Immigrant.” Pensky pointed out this idea of an old digital age and new digital age, or as he calls it “web 1.0” and “web 2.0.” Older individuals had become proficient and may have grown up with the internet that was built for reading, owning, individual user use, and consuming content - Web 1.0. Whereas younger people now have become proficient and have grown up with the internet that was built for writing, communities, sharing, and producing content - web 2.0. Couldn’t it be that these different age groups could be more knowledgeable and well versed in respect to the internet that is or was more prevalent in their experience? For example, an younger individual would know what “the cloud” is, but doesn’t know that the “save” icon on is a floppy disk - because they did not need or experience having to use the little plastic disk to save their documents - and vice versa.

As Boyd points out, however, assuming that young people inherently have knowledge about technology is a stretch. She says “teens must fend for themselves to make sense of how technologies work and how information spreads.” I consider myself a part of the “digital native” and I remember being in school when my teachers would have an issue with the overhead projectors or their computer, their first question to the class would be “ is anyone here good with this stuff?” As if our 6th grade minds somehow understood the mechanics of a computer better than any adult. Boyd put it best when she says “there is no magical relation between skills and age.” Tiktok didn’t come with an instruction manual - people played around with timing, transition, sound, and movement to create these videos. Young people were not born knowing how to hold an iphone and type 36 words/min with their thumbs. I myself become frustrated when older individuals assume I just know how to do things. When I was reading this piece, I kept thinking about my parents constantly asking me to “fix the internet” at home. I would get so annoyed and tell them that I had my degree in psychology, not software engineering. My ability to “fix the internet” was learning to read the very long troubleshooting manual and resetting our modem. Which brings me to this idea of theory vs practice. Young people may be able to practice something without knowing the theory behind it. This is where education comes in as a key in bridging the gap both for “natives” and “immigrants”. The gap being the “variation in knowledge and experience”, as Boyd says. School cannot be a place where students need to power down, as Prensky pointed out. How are school cultures either nurturing or limiting/confining digital knowledge and practice?

I believe our job as educators, whether we teach in a classroom or not, is to not assume young people just know how to use technology and to better understand this new digital age.