Digital Natives and Literacy
In a podcast called On Being with Krista Tippett, host of the podcast, Krista Tippett, hosts technologist, principal researcher for Microsoft Research, and founder of Data & Society research institute, Danah Boyd. Together, Tippett and Boyd engage in a conversation surrounding technology and its evolution, and how we utilize it in the 21st century. During the conversation, Tippett poses a question concerning the term "digital natives" in the classroom, in which Boyd responds, "When we use the term 'digital natives,' we assume, then, that adults don’t have anything to teach young people, and that is so not true." Before listening to this podcast, I didn't think twice about the concept of "digital natives" because I believed that it referred to a generation of people who grew up, or are growing up with technology.
For example, I considered my younger cousin, who is eleven years younger than myself, to be a digital native because at three years old, he knew how to navigate my iPhone. My cousin has never lived in a world where touch screens don't surround him, which is why I believed he and his generation could be defined as digital natives. But, like Boyd voiced, this term raises problems. If a generation is identified as being digitally native, it insinuates that the generations before them are digitally incompetent and that there is nothing older generations can teach the younger generations when it comes to technology. It also suggests that the digitally native generation is fluent in technology, and that there isn't anything else they can learn. This is false, because technology is constantly changing and evolving, meaning people who consume technology will always have the opportunity to improve their digital skills. So instead of deeming people of younger generations as digital natives who are fluent in technology, a better word to use is digital literacy.
The traditional textbook definition of "literacy" is often along the lines of the ability to read and write. Today, it can be defined as competency and exploration of a certain topic or skill. For example, a musician will most likely have literacy in music theory because it is something the musician is actively studying and improving in. When thinking about the term "digital literacy" we can infer from this that digital literacy means having the ability to navigate your way around modern technology and actively seeking to improve your skills. In "No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait" by Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner, they discuss the importance of digital literacy and ways it can be practiced in the classroom. One way English teachers can potentially promote digital literacy is through blogs.
While blogs are usually short pieces of writing that are traditionally capped at 800 words, they are useful in providing information or sharing a topic in a concise way. Blogs can both be informal and formal and authors are welcome to make their blogs multimodal in that it can include images, hyperlinks, videos, and other forms of media. In other words, blogs are creative ways to convey information and engage in conversation surrounding the respective topic. Therefore, when thinking back to digital literacy, writing blogs are interesting ways for people of all ages to showcase their ideas, meaning writing blogs is a form of practicing digital literacy.
In addition to sharing ideas in blog form, it is also important to engage in blogs, which is why commenting on each other's blogs in this course is so important. While writing and posting our blogs help us practice our own digital literacies, collaborating with each other and commenting on each other's blogs further our digital skills in that it helps us engage in larger conversations through this creative outlet. This is also something we can model for our students, which goes back to the digital native argument. As educators and teacher candidates, we are actively engaging our students who are deemed as digital natives and introducing them to new ways they can enhance their digital skills. Instead, we must think of our students, and ourselves, as practicing digital literacy, because it is a skill we will always be improving in, both in and out of our classrooms.
For example, I considered my younger cousin, who is eleven years younger than myself, to be a digital native because at three years old, he knew how to navigate my iPhone. My cousin has never lived in a world where touch screens don't surround him, which is why I believed he and his generation could be defined as digital natives. But, like Boyd voiced, this term raises problems. If a generation is identified as being digitally native, it insinuates that the generations before them are digitally incompetent and that there is nothing older generations can teach the younger generations when it comes to technology. It also suggests that the digitally native generation is fluent in technology, and that there isn't anything else they can learn. This is false, because technology is constantly changing and evolving, meaning people who consume technology will always have the opportunity to improve their digital skills. So instead of deeming people of younger generations as digital natives who are fluent in technology, a better word to use is digital literacy.
The traditional textbook definition of "literacy" is often along the lines of the ability to read and write. Today, it can be defined as competency and exploration of a certain topic or skill. For example, a musician will most likely have literacy in music theory because it is something the musician is actively studying and improving in. When thinking about the term "digital literacy" we can infer from this that digital literacy means having the ability to navigate your way around modern technology and actively seeking to improve your skills. In "No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait" by Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner, they discuss the importance of digital literacy and ways it can be practiced in the classroom. One way English teachers can potentially promote digital literacy is through blogs.
In addition to sharing ideas in blog form, it is also important to engage in blogs, which is why commenting on each other's blogs in this course is so important. While writing and posting our blogs help us practice our own digital literacies, collaborating with each other and commenting on each other's blogs further our digital skills in that it helps us engage in larger conversations through this creative outlet. This is also something we can model for our students, which goes back to the digital native argument. As educators and teacher candidates, we are actively engaging our students who are deemed as digital natives and introducing them to new ways they can enhance their digital skills. Instead, we must think of our students, and ourselves, as practicing digital literacy, because it is a skill we will always be improving in, both in and out of our classrooms.
It's funny. I've considered our generation to be caught on the cusp of being "digital natives" and I take slight offense to that in all actuality. Personally, I'm not great with technology and have a love-hate relationship with it at best. Whenever I hear of these text-to-blog approaches to teaching, I immediately think back to Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows and tend to fall into his camp that modern technology is gradually eroding our attention spans to absorb large volumes of information (namely the traditional print literature of old) at a time. I'm curious to see how you yourself plan to tackle this problem in teaching mandated classical texts in our classroom through the online medium. Though I like your odds because in all honesty, I really like your definition of literacy.
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the way you tied the pod cast and the article together. Also, super relatable info about your younger cousin because sometimes my 13 year old niece makes me feel stupid when it comes to navigating technology and I think these experiences are getting at the point of older generations feeling like they have nothing to teach and younger generations feeling like they have nothing to learn. I also appreciate how you bring it all back to the classroom as an educator and focus on the point made both by the podcast and the article, that its something that exists inside and outside of the classroom, as it exists in the real world and on the internet.
I'm feeling a bit meta for commenting this on a blog that mentions the importance of commenting on blogs, but I'm not complaining!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Allie that you tied in the reading and podcast for class this week beautifully. Teaching students how and why to fully utilize a blog (rather than just assume that they know how they work, 'cause they don't!) is a great way to promote digital literacy among the upcoming generations. We can't just assume when it comes to technology. I also like how you tied this into your personal life by mentioning your nephew. This makes it clear that you really understand what Boyd and Tippett meant when they talked about "digital natives," which adds credibility to the connections you've made with your post.
In my own teaching experience, this truth (a truth that Boyd eloquently explains in Tippett's podcast) is evidenced by the fact that most of my students aren't yet proficient with using Skyward. Skyward is a web-based platform that they use to view their grades, missing assignments, and comments from teachers on those assignments. Their teachers (the six of us on our team) are responsible, therefore, to teach them how to do this. Where I teach, there's no technology curriculum or technology teachers (I assume that this is also true for most other districts), so everyone we must use our best judgement (based on knowledge of research-proven strategies and ideas), when it comes to teaching students more about it. We decide what they need training on (blogs, Skyward, Google Classroom) and what parts of that technology they should focus on.