Boyd vs Prensky

Prensky's view of digital awareness and capability places people into two groups -- digital immigrants and digital natives. He describes digital immigrants as those who grew up in an age before technology became so widely available and digital natives as people who were born into a time where cell phones, the internet, social media, etc. are the norm. In Prensky's line of thinking, all youth have a natural tendency to understand technology and are able to implement it into their lives effectively. Boyd warns against assuming that all young people are automatically "natives" when it comes to technology and media. She argues that we need to look beyond age when assessing a person's ability to use technology effectively; she says that digital immigrants may actually have knowledge to bring to the table and that digital natives still need to be taught how to think critically about what they see or read on the internet or in the media.

I tend to agree more with Boyd's writing than Prensky's. One passage in particular that stuck out to me was where Boyd talked about how "being comfortable using technology is increasingly important for everyday activities: obtaining a well-paying job, managing medical care, engaging with government" (pg 180). If we just assume that our students already have the ability to use technology productively and adequately, we may be sending them out into a world where they will struggle if they don't actually have these skills. In my science classroom, my students always turn to Google when they need to research something and often take the first definition or explanation right from the first box that pops up without analyzing the source or checking other sites. It is my job to be proactive about teaching them how to identify credible sources rather than trusting Google whole-heartedly. I also found Boyd's view on Wikipedia interesting. I have definitely been one of those teachers that warned my students against trusting information on Wikipedia. Boyd said that textbooks can quickly become outdated while Wikipedia is constantly being updated with new and more accurate information.

In summary, I feel that Prensky is right about how technology is present in the lives of all youth today and in my experience most have a natural ability to understand how technology works, however we also need to be mindful of the fact that we shouldn't expect that all students already know how to think critically about the information they are seeing or reading in the digital world.