Living in a digital world

The positions of Dana Boyd and Mike Wesch are reaching in different directions, although they both acknowledge the importance of technology in today's world and the role that it plays in the educational classroom. Boyd discusses the generational gap that has emerged around technology and the consideration of youths as digital natives. She presses the issue of uneven distribution of technology skills across the youth population (digital inequality). There are assumptions that teens understand technology because they absorb it through exposure but they need to be taught to evaluate information. On the other hand, Wesch feels that the "spirit" of interactivity, participation, and collaboration is more important than the technology itself. He believes that we are in the midst of a social revolution, not a technological one. I feel that both of these authors views make a valid point and should be taken into consideration when teaching students. Although I understand Wesch's statement regarding social revolution because technology is allowing us to collaborate socially through sites like Facebook and academically through sites like Wikipedia, I think that technology is the up and coming innovation and we need to be prepared to assist our students in learning through it.

Boyd also discusses the idea of "digital wisdom" and teaching our students how to evaluate information they find on the web rather than censoring. Students are told by their teachers that Wikipedia shouldn't be trusted and should not be used as a source for bibliographies. This is one case in which Boyd believes digital wisdom would play a role. Wesch sates that Wikipedia is a place in which people can work together to create information that may surpass that of experts and discusses it as a much more reliable source than Boyd. I often use Wikipedia when searching for information on a topic, but I agree with Boyd that we must be learn digital wisdom.

Marc Prensky's term "digital native" means that children raised in a digital world need a media-rich learning environment. I think that digital native is a loose term because there are many types of technology for children to experience, so what defines who actually is a digital native? There are many children that are born into this new technological era that have absolutely no experience with technology. The digital divide is the technological gap between socioeconomic statuses. Also, I believe since technology is constantly changing and advancing we are all always digital immigrants. There is always some new gadget or website being created that we must learn to use. This is why I think Prensky's term digital wisdom is more relative because we can use our wisdom to help us continue learning about new tools.