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Weekly UpdatesDIGITAL NATIVES AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL DIVIDE
Evidence of what is called the second media age of interactivity (Holmes &Russell 1999) is evidenced in the massive shift to internet and mobile phone use around the world. For example, data provided by Internet World Stats (2008) indicates that about 1.5 billion people use the internet. While this represents only about 22 percent of the world's population, the top 20 countries have by far the greatest number of users, accounting for 76 percent of all them, while the remaining countries of the world share the residual 24 percent (Internet World Stats 2008). Indicative of future trends, China already surpasses the US in terms of total internet users but the percent of its population with internet connections is only 19 percent. In the US, the equivalent figure is about 73 percent (Internet World Stats 2008).
The subscriber count for mobile phones now involves over 3.3 billion people, or half the world's population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mobile_phone). It is expected that by 2010, 90 percent of the world's population will have access to mobile phones Already, over 50 countries have mobile phone subscription penetration rates higher than the countries' population, suggesting that there are many individuals with multiple subscriptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile _phone).
These figures raise questions about the common perception that fascination with technology is concentrated mainly among the young. It appears, on the contrary, that there are rising levels of technology uptake among all age groups: the whole world seems to be going on line and connecting through cellular technologies. Yet as Prensky (2001) and others write, young people today, particularly those in western countries and wealthier young people in developing countries, are surrounded by an astonishing range of digital technologies including iPods, videogames, digital music players, video cams and iPhones. Prensky estimates that the current college graduate has spent less than 5000 hours reading but over 10,000 hours playing video games, 200,000 hours in emails and text messaging, over 10,000 hours talking on digital cell phones, and over 20,000 hours watching TV (Prensky 2001a: 6). He writes of a 'digital divide' in which young people are 'natives,' growing up with technology, in contrast to the older generations of people ('digital immigrants') who are solidly grounded in a prior 'broadcast mode of social integration' (Holmes & Russell 1999).
Recent studies of the effects of consumer markets on children and young people suggest that two trends are emerging. One is a concern with what young people are consuming and its relationship to the formation of their identities: this encompasses the market-driven emphasis on 'being what you own', the themes of sexualisation, and the focus on increasingly younger children as new target groups for consumer markets. The other trend is the growing ascendency of interactive technologies and the ways they are being used by technological natives to explore their identities, abilities and interests. Schor (2004) is one of the best-known researchers among those who have examined the penetration of advertising into everyday life, and the effects consumerist values have on the conceptions and behaviours of children. Her research suggests that by the age of two children have been exposed to hundreds of advertisements, as even children's programs are filled with them. Out of this exposure come particular messages, values and consumer desires (Schor 2004: 64). Many children adopt specific behaviours favoured by the media to coerce parents to buy. Adopting a stance of 'being cool' and anti-authoritarian, and expressing opposition to adult likes and interests are among the messages children's programming and advertising promote. This can lead to family dynamics where children wield tremendous and extensive influence over purchases of not only their own clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and technologies, but also family items such as food, the TV, music systems, or the family car (Schor 2004).
The writing of others such as Holmes and Russell (1999), Prensky (2001a,b) and Phillips (2008) illustrate the significance of the digital divide for 'natives' and the implications for their inclusion in social processes such as education and politics. Prensky maintains that digital natives speak a new language and operate in ways entirely different from their elders or other 'digital immigrants'. For example (Prensky 2001a: 2):
Among the consequences of such deep discontinuity is that digital technologies have had the effect of 'lifting out' young people from the traditional patterns of institutional socialization through family, church and school (Holmes & Russell 1999). Through networking using computers, internet, mobile phones, and text messaging, digital natives are constantly in touch with one another. FaceBook and MySpace have the capacity to literally put them in contact with countless others. Since such technologies are anonymous and flexible, FaceBook and MySpace can be used by individuals to explore, present, modify and adapt their identities in relative security. They thus provide subscribers with autonomy from traditional forms of supervision (Marshall 2007).
Digital natives reportedly find traditional modes of education boring, most teachers seriously out of date, and schooling in general requiring a 'powering down' (Prensky 2001a). Prensky argues that schools should recognize that the new skills and abilities that children bring to the classroom have been acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice, affecting how they think and process information. To make schooling more relevant, educators need to consider both the methodology and the content of how knowledge is transferred and what constitutes a learning environment.
Teaching methods, for example, too often rely on logical progression, going step by step with frequent repetition and tests. However, there is no reason why lessons could not go faster, be presented more in parallel rather than in sequential form, featuring random access to information and being interactive, relying on social networking and generally integrating the skills students have with the knowledge to be taught. Much could be done by integrating the content of the traditional curriculum with new software and technological options presented through the internet and other sources. In other words, the curriculum could be taught in different ways, using different means. Examples are approaches such as 'game-based learning' or the use of computer games such as Dr. Monkey Wrench that is used to teach engineering students (Prensky 2001b). Prensky argues that maths could be taught featuring skills such as approximation, statistics, and binary thinking which would be familiar to digital natives (2001b). Similarly, Pokeman-type games, that require memorizing the histories of many different characters, could be adapted to teach geography, featuring the different nations of the world. The concerns of ethics, reflection, politics and sociology could be incorporated into these approaches as the program content depends on who creates it. An important but unresolved problem at this stage is, who will teach these classes?
Dealing with the methods and content of classroom learning still leaves unanswered the problem that many young people seem to be more adept and comfortable with text messaging and MySpace interaction than they are with face-to-face exchanges. One of the problems facing education for innovative cities is how to capitalize on the abilities and skills digital natives have, while also developing in them an appreciation of and ability to interact with others within the physical social contexts in which they find themselves.
Service learning
One attempt to ground digital native students in exciting face-to-face activity is to involve them in projects that are productive, that engage them with others, and require them to apply what they know in an attempt to create new solutions to problems. This approach is known as service-learning and has been widely supported in the US since the 1980s. A simple definition of service learning is linking academic knowledge with community service guided by reflection (McCarthy 2004). Each element of knowledge, service, and reflection is important in encouraging students to be actively involved in providing service to others, applying what they know and reflecting on what they have experienced. The central role of teachers in guiding and facilitating the learning of students makes new demands on them regarding how curriculum material is interwoven into community service. Nevertheless, the class remains the teacher's to organise, plan and assess.
The advantage of service learning is that it can be used in multiple ways to integrate the skills and interests of students with pressing community needs. Moreover, project partners in service learning participate in reciprocal learning situations that can include local government agencies, communication outlets such as local TV stations, environmental groups, aid agencies and not-for-profit organizations that are international in scope. The range of community agencies that could be involved as partners is vast. By exercising a little ingenuity, teachers could involve students in designing their own projects, choosing which agencies to work with, creating work plans, and encouraging them to use their digital skills to the benefit of others.
Research on the effectiveness of service learning suggests that students who engage in service-learning classes are more likely to have higher grades (Frederickson 2000; Strage 2004) and report greater interest in their classes (Vogelgesang & Astin 2000). Service learning can lead to the mutual empowerment of all those participating in it; that is, the students, their teachers, and the community agencies where the students carry out their placements (Artz 2001; King 2004). Asian students participating in service-learning also report a greater appreciation of people who are different, as well as greater interest in both local issues and the Asian region (McCarthy et al. 2005).
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