A few quick thoughts in response to our online course.
I feel that we have many different positions and view points relating to technology. Reading other posts I've noticed that a substantial number of the learners are what Michael Harris might call "Digital Immigrants" or people born before 1985 (which of course makes sense as many people born after 1985 (Mark Prensky had earlier said 1980) would not be in a MEd class.) This is the last generation that will remember our society without internet connectivity. That is quite an interesting position to be in! I myself am one in a transitory generation, I remember the beginnings of the internet and that horrible sound... but it's always been there. I watched Seinfeld and I know what an answering machine is.
Reading a post by D today, I thought about the three, possibly four groups of people currently alive (grouped according to their birth relative to the current technological revolution) I've adjusted Marc Prensky's 2001 article to better suit my (somewhat limited and biassed) understanding of the situation:
0) Digital Hermits: People of my grandparents age ... but more stubborn or plain just happy without all this hullabaloo. My own personal grandparents are immigrating constantly into the technological era. They have always had a computer and now have a digital photo frame ... it has been a disaster in some parts but the computer itself has always gone relatively well with the help of my aunts and uncles.
1) Digital Immigrants: People like my parents, many of my coworkers, my bosses, Jerry Seinfeld, D, the presidents and PMs the world over, and possibly our professor though he seems to have completely immigrated from my understanding of the situation... Hi Doug!
2) Digital Native generation 1: People like me who remember the birth of this technology and were born to older Digital Immigrants.
3) Digital Native generation 2: People like my students who were born online with highspeed internet and often have fairly technologically competent parents.
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| What kind of kindergarten doesn't have Wi-Fi ... |
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| Click here for a short discussion of digital natives vs digital immigrants. Do you agree? |
In communication with D:
I somewhat envy your first trip through university. Not because I think it was easy or more peaceful or anything like that, but because I have no idea what that would be like!
My high school experience was relatively low tech... our teachers wheeled around tvs with integrated VCRs, we read from paper books with cracked corners and missing pages, we did have a computer lab but the mouses had balls in them instead of lasers... But by the time I left high school, everybody had cellphones (not fancy ones but a good solid brick of a Nokia that could make calls and text on a black and white screen) and was constantly connected. I have no idea what it was like to sign up for courses on paper, to try to rendez-vous with somebody without the backup of a cellphone, to check my balance and pay bills on the phone or GASP in person!
I sometimes wonder what my work life, my classroom, my house, my life and my navigation skills would be without technology. I like to think that I have prepared my classroom for everything up to an including the zombie apocalypse; I have white boards and markers and the students work standing up and in direct face to face communication with each other the majority of the time, but I still do have days when I rent the laptops from the library and we geek out on TedTV.
Your entry gave me pause... as a child of the technological transition I already have a hard time imagining a world without internet or power. I wonder, if people like my parents, you, and all the other functional adults born before me could adapt to this technology, how would my students and the new generation born with apps for brains adjust to a tech-free world.
Waiting for the zombie apocalypse,
Amanda
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