Misconceptions of the “Digital Native”

I have some serious issues with the idea of our students as “digital natives” and the older generation being labeled “digital immigrants”. As a 40-something year old educator that is also a technology coach, I have been on the forefront of my district in implementing technology into my curriculum. For several years, I have encouraged students to bring their own devices as well as successfully been able to secure devices when necessary to get close to a 1:1 technology ratio. My conclusion after several years of experimentation: Students have little idea what to do with their devices.

I teach high school at a district that is low performing, and socio-economically challenged with a significant population of English Language Learners. In my two classes of freshmen students, less than 7% of them are reading at grade level, with some of them reading at levels below third grade. The reasons for this situation are complex and varied and will probably fill many of my future blog posts. The point, however, is that most of my students do not have the educational foundation, nor the intrinsic motivation to organically learn through technology. They come into class expecting the traditional lectures and pen and paper assignments with which they began their academic career.

Current high school students have grown up during the rapid development of smart phones and tablets. Consequently, most of them remember the days of only texting and calling from their devices. They were not born into the wonders of iOs and modern Google capabilities. They witnessed their evolution just like us “old-folks”. As a result, it seems that texting, using social media, and watching videos online are the skills they have truly developed. So, for this current generation of high schoolers, there is a long way to go for them to catch up to the group of children one generation behind them.

I would argue that many of our current teenagers were born on the wrong side of the technology cusp. If we as educators simply assume our students know what to do with their devices, then we are doing them a great disservice and potentially preventing them from being competitive with the true digital natives that are on the heels of the current teen generation. This group needs a significant amount of coaching and guidance when it comes to using technology for academic or learning purposes. The idea of giving them a device and saying “surprise me” is not quite here yet.