Boyd vs. Prensky

What do you make of the divergent positions of Boyd and Prensky? What do you hear them saying about who youth are? Where do you stand on the term "digital native?"

When I reflect on the term digital native, and the readings I am struck by two things. One is that we know that kids are engaged digitally for significant amounts of time. In this respect, it seems to make sense that we as teachers would want to leverage that natural interest and experience with technology in our classrooms. 

   "Our students today are all "native speakers "of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet." The notion that "digital natives" move more adeptly and with speed seems to be anecdotally accurate in my household. My children are also far more likely to use digital terms as verbs and tease me when I sound "old".  

However, Prensky seems to assume that experience with technology equates to a certain knowledge, while Boyd suggests that children often do not have the critical skills necessary to discern quality of content. She uses the example that Wikipedia is seen as "bad" or inferior to Google, though Google is a for profit company using a complicated algorithm to produce search results.  Prensky also points to a digital inequality, that is access to internet and certain devices which can create vastly different digital experiences.

As an educator, I think we need to lean into both the idea that our students have a background in technology that is very different from our own as well as the concept that they need to be taught to think critically about digital content in the way that it is presented and how that possible bias could impact content.