This morning a colleague forwarded an article with yet another unquestioning quote on the theme that “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors”. I’ve always wondered to what extent that statement was supported by research. Conference speakers quote it as Holy Writ to support their own workshops and books about turning education into one gigantic game.
So I sent my doubts about this into the aether via Twitter and within seconds Miguel Guhlin pointed me to a new article by Jamie McKenzie: Digital Nativism. As usual, Jamie absolutely nails it.
And also hot off the press is a blog entry by a digital native of whom I am profoundly proud. It tickles me to see such metacognitive awareness.
The take-home lesson for me is this: I’m not going to promote the digital native meme at all any more in presentations, not even with the grain of salt I usually add. Today’s kids have a different history than we do, and on average are a lot more comfortable with technology. But brains are brains and the principles of teaching and learning that used to work still work the same. Variety, sensory richness, relevance, control, competition, cooperation… shouldn’t all learning environments have these?
[photo by eyelash_divided]