Two-Year-Old Digital Natives

With the correct, specific series of seven buttons to push, one can turn the 52" screen on and find Sprout, a PBS program for pre-schoolers. As part of the Comcast package deal, this program is on 24~7. Often the topics are relevant (or at least almost watchable) not only for the two-to-five year old, but brothers, sisters, moms, dads, and grandparents as well. Sprout is as close to quality programming for tots that I find on TV.

Digital Grandma Kay has a long ways to go to remembering those specific series of seven buttons. Two-year-old Digital Native Max has conquered them. As "we" watch Sprout, Max keeps up with what is on the screen, plays with toys, is aware of what food is being consumed anywhere in the house, acknowledges anyone arriving or departing, operates toys with digital devices to make sound, color, and action, informs us when the phone is ringing, responds to any demands made by us, and entertains with gymnastic feats of strength and endurance. Max feeds play animals imaginary food while Sprout shows real animals eating real food on real farms. Max does jumping jacks and somersaults while Sprout shows animated characters going to Gym-School. Max cues in to Thomas the Train as next coming up by making the sound of a train tooting while watching a story about falling down and getting "owees" on the animated character's knees. One cannot tell if he distinguishes real from imaginary from animated.

This morning Sprout showed how to load a disk into a computer to play a game. Why? I am not sure, because there is a website that has innumerable games that relate to the Sprout show at www.pbsKids.com which Max uses. Sprout uses an old white, boxy computer that only faintly resembles the laptop Max accesses. A four-year-old with limited vocabulary explains that if you hit the number 5 on the computer keyboard, a 5 will pop up on the screen. His reasoning of why this happens made more sense than my answer of "It is a little bit of magic!"

I just finished reading Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott. Tapscott's description of the 20-year-old Digital Native watching television is an exact match to my observation of our two-year-old Digital Native grandson Max.

I.safe: cyber bullying and on.line predators

Just yesterday I received a friend request on Facebook from a student at my school. It is not odd that he found my name on Facebook. It is not odd that he perhaps wants to be my friend. What strikes me as very wrong is that on his profile he says his birthdate is 1986. That would indicate he is 23 years old. The picture he posted is very seductive. Does this 10 year old digital native know what he is creating? I know that this particular kid has 112 times the digital skills as I have. And he flaunts those skills every hour of every day.

Then I looked at his friends. Many I knew as either present or former students at my elementary school. Many had obviously wrong birthdates. Many had very suggestive pictures. Are their parents so digital dinosaurs or so digital tourists that they have not checked their young children's Facebook profiles? Do they get this cyber world?

I am scheduled to teach the I.safe curriculum to my kindergartners through fifth graders in the very near futue. Can I help keep these digital native children safe on.line? Can I teach two lessons on on.line predators or cyber-bullying and make an impact?

I am no longer on Facebook. I am truly frightened.

Digital Definitions - merriam-webster.com

Merriam-Webster.com welcomes suggestions for new words not yet in their dictionary. Our fifth graders are asking for Digital.Native, Digital.Immigrant, Digital.Tourist, and Digital.Dinosaur to be included. Perhaps I will add Digital.Grandma to the list.

#2 Blog from Digital Immigrant Rewired

Friday, October 2, 2009
Wish I Could Change Blog to Digital Grandma
At Chinese tonight with friends, I marvelled at the gist of the conversation. All four of us clearly not Digital natives, actually probably not Digital immigrants. Yet, conversation centered on the digital world. One guy had an I-Phone he continually used as an information source. Did you know there are actually four new Lincoln pennies? Two are out and two more planned. One gal is Japanese from Hawaii. I ate the entire meal with chopsticks after she taught me how. Tim wanted to show me a funny clip about a librarian, Lo said to download it to her phone and she would show it to me later. Duane and Tim had difficulty hearing despite high tech hearing aids in place. When will the digital world catch up and make an efficient hearing aid? Like those articificial legs and arms they make these days. To this elderly digital generation, these are important questions. My new blog will be called Digital Grandma. I just don't know how to change the name on this one to say that. So much for being Digital Immigrant Rewired.
Posted by Kay Douglass at 8:16 PM 1 comments

First Blog from D.Natives Teaching D.Natives

Saturday, September 26, 2009
Digital Natives Teaching Digital Natives
Digital Natives actually have different pathways in their brains that are used to problem solve than other human beings. MRI's have been used to demonstrate this. So I completely understand that a D.Native Teacher teaching Digital Natives to problem solve works very well. How about a Digital Immigrant teaching a Digital Native to problem solve? Unless the immigrant has re-wired, doesn't this make a disconnect? Is that why D.Natives can text using thumbs and D.Immigrants just don't seem to make the same exercise easy? Or the reverse. D.Immigrants think they can teach their D.Native students to keyboard with both hands on the keyboard using the "correct fingering", when in fact those D.Natives have had alternative keyboard fingering imprinted in their brains from birth on. Think remotes, cell phones. Expanded, this is becoming a problem in most instruction given to D.Natives by D.Immigrants, D. Tourists, and D.Dinosaurs.
Posted by Kay Douglass at 4:16 PM 1 comments