cyberthoughts

I have been revisiting the concept of digital immigrants and digtial natives. Personally, I have always disliked the distinction made based on the generation (i.e. age!!!) of the natives compared to the immigrants. Henry Jenkins has a great post on the reconsideration of Digital Immigrants…if you havent read it…I highly recommend it…provocative…

http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/12/reconsidering_digital_immigran.html

The challenge I believe is twofold…how to keep abreast of emerging technologies and learning to be comfortable with them. Regardless of whether one is an immigrant or a native, there is still a plethoria of digital technology with which to become fluent, much as immigrants and natives alike struggle to become fluent in languages.

I just returned from a phenomenal educational conference in Columbia, SC. Heard from some incredibly innovative educational technologists, the most profound (in my opinion) was Alan November.  He challenged those of us who have been in the educational field for decades (hard to believe I have two decades in education!) to think about  the “containers” students use for information. While I was in school, the container was paper. For today’s students, the container is technology. The challenge is how to put our content in the containers the students want to carry! Food for thought.