Digital Immigrants, Natives, Residents, or Visitors?

To categorize myself in the digital era under Prensky’s terms of Digital Native vs. Digital Immigrant (2001), I am a Native, but mainly because of my age. I do identify with his description of the Digital Native using technology as an integral part of life. I get antsy when my internet goes out; I grab my phone right away and take advantage of my 3G internet if I want to check stuff online.  I like to be connected to the world and to my friends, and technology makes it easier to do. His take on this subject was written when I was in high school. Yet I do see great difference in the way my students learn versus how I learned (discussed in the previous post). If my teachers read his article back then, I wonder if they would have done some things differently if they had the resources.
            I feel like I have learned a lot on my own as far as working with technology to problem solve and connect to others (and I’m still learning). However, while I fall into this category of his, I do not think it is a fair categorization of how well people use technology. When I observe people in my life and their “relationship” with technology, I see people who can cross these categories easily. I have friends who are around my age that think Facebook is stupid and do not care to play video games (well maybe they play solitaire). In fact I remember telling a friend of mine that my masters would be focused in technology and they said, “oh how boring”. I have a few friends who just recently got a facebook account. On the other end I know some people that would be categorized in the “digital immigrants” category that use technology to socialize and find information to solve problems, not just to look up something quick. The fastest growing demographic on facebook is women over the age of 55 (Smith, 2009). While the time you were born in affects what you are exposed to as a young person, age does not necessarily tell you how a person uses technology.

Digital Natives
(from widimedia.net)

            I like the resident vs. visitor categories better because it is not specific to age, but rather a person’s habits. I would put myself in the resident category because I do like to use the Internet for networking and connecting with others to find information, share my opinions, and stay connected to my friends. A “visitor” goes online to do tasks and does not use the internet to express themselves or research other’s opinions.

Immigrants and Natives collide in their own house!
(from teachcreatively)

As White (2008) says, these categories do not necessarily reflect the skills of the user. Just because a resident uses social networking and is on the computer for long period of time, it does not mean they know how to effectively do research. I am learning this about my students. I have had them use the computers to do research and have seen them struggle with using the internet effectively. I had my students look up information on the universe and they had to present the information. I told them that if they come across something they do not know they have to look up the words further so they can understand them. When they presented the information, I pointed out some of the big words I figured they did not know and I would ask them what they mean. A majority of my students could not tell me. This shows to me that they just want to take the first answer they find and run with it. But I told them they have to understand what they are researching and use other sources to find that information. These are skills that they are developing. So even though most of them would be considered residents or digital natives, they still need to learn how to do find valid information online that they can process.

While these categories can be helpful in developing approaches to engage your learners, I think it all comes down to what is best for your students. If you put them in these categories and assume they fit a certain mold, then you may find out that these practices may not fit their needs. Or they may not know some of these tools that are on the web. In a study done by Kennedy et. al (2008), they found that there was not a major difference between the “natives” and “immigrants”  when using different types of technology. The biggest differences were with gaming and advanced mobile technologies. Otherwise, advanced technologies, using digital media presentations, social web publishing, and standard use of mobile technology and web services show only slight differences in the frequency of use with the “natives” using them somewhat more. The use of technology is more complicated than age, factors like gender may also be something to consider.

From what I observe from my students, socio-economic factors may play a role as well. About 25% of them do not have internet at home and only 20% have a Smartphone. I don’t know if the numbers would be different at a school with students who have come from a wealthier background. At my school, 70% of our students are considered low income and I’m sure that plays a role in the tools they use for technology. I surveyed them and found that only a few knew what a blog was, of course most of them have a facebook. I wonder if exposing them to blogs will be something they like or will they not care for it since they do not use them in the first place? I may try it and see what happens. For my kids, an educational social networking site like edmodo or Ning may be better since they all seem to like to use facebook or myspace.

It comes down to finding out what your learners use and using the right tools based on that. Teachers have to be flexible and find out information about the students. A teacher has to also encourage the students and show them how to use these technologies efficiently. I feel it is especially important for students who may not have these technologies at home or easy access to them. That means the only experience with them would be at school and if we want to prepare them for jobs and college, they need to know how to use these Web 2.0 tools. I have been stressing to my students that I don’t expect them to be perfect, but I expect them to try using computers because otherwise they will never learn how to use them. 

The Digital Divide:

References

elearningfoundation [posted]. Can Miles tackle the digital divide? [video] (2008, September 8). From http://youtu.be/-BARWmnj7Aw

Kennedy, G., Dalgarno, B., Bennett, S., Judd, T., Gray, K. & Chang, R. (2008). Immigrants and natives: Investigating differences between staff and students’ use of technology. In Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings ascilite 

Melbourne 2008.  From http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/kennedy.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001, October) Digital natives, digital immigrants. NCB Univeristy Press (Vol 9 No 5). 

Smith, J. (2009, February). Fastest Growing Demographic on Facebook: Women Over 55. Retrieved from http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/

White, D. (2008, July 23) Not “natives and immigrants” but visitors and residents. Retrieved from http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/