The 'digital campus' podcast (which I would recommend to anyone on this list) covered the same issue last September, if anyone is interested - http://digitalcampus.tv/2008/09/24/episode-32-going-native/ I also find that many students are not as familiar with software as one would expect, given all the hype (or hardware for that matter, one student bought an iPod because she thought that she needed one to be able to listen to *pod*casts). It seems to me that there are some people who are always more curious about how software works, or who want to explore its different possibilities, and those are the ones who become more proficient in tweaking and (eventually) hacking programmes. Most people will use the basic functions of what is presented to them, and not go much further than that; for example, it's always surprised me how little many office workers know of how to use Office Word or Excel. I guess where the 'digital native' aspect may come in is that, where the 'immigrant' is probably more likely to want to stick with the programme they know, the 'native' is more willing to try out new software/gadgets. This is probably not because of an innate knowledge of the inner workings of software or different logic, but because they are used to seeing new things come out regularly. However, a corollary to that perhaps is that new software and gadgets are likely to conform as much as possible to previous interfaces and thus the need for the 'natives' to adapt to something new is minimised. Overall, it will always be a minority who are willing to take risks, innovate, etc. Cheers, Julian ++++++++++ Blog: www.julianhopkins.net Skype: julhop IM: jfprhopkins@hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:27:08 +1100 From: Robert Ackland <robert.ackland@anu.edu.au> Subject: [Air-L] So-called Digital Natives - interesting newspaper article To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <497679EC.4020809@anu.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed The following article in The Australian newspaper may be of interest to members of this list: "The natives aren't quite so restless" by Christoper Scanlon http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24939539-25192,00.html An interesting look at the existence of so-called "digital natives", and implications for teaching technology at universities. An excerpt from the article: "Despite the hype about digital natives' technological skills, the reality is that most students don't come to class with technological knowledge pre-installed. The question is, why is there such a divergence between claims about digital natives and the realities of the classroom? The answer is partly a matter of class, commercial interest and confusion." -- ------------------------------------- Dr Robert Ackland Fellow and Masters Coordinator Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute The Australian National University e-mail: robert.ackland@anu.edu.au homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php project: http://voson.anu.edu.au ph./fax: +61 2 6125 0312/+61 2 6125 2992 mail: Coombs Building, 9 Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA Information about the Master of Social Research (Social Science of the Internet specialisation): http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php -------------------------------------