Boyd verses Presky

Boyd suggests in her book "It's Complicated," that the term “Digital Native” does not give us a clear picture of the depth to which students can truly understand and process the accuracy of the content they are finding through technology. Thus, to use the term “digital native” so broadly, Prensky fails to take into account whether or not all students have the necessary help to develop broad digital competency.  As a result, according to Boyd, “educators and the public end up reproducing digital inequality because more privileged youth often have more opportunities to develop these skills outside the classroom. When we assume that youth will just absorb all things digital through exposure, we absolve ourselves of our responsibility to help teenagers develop necessary skills.” I agree with Boyd because not only do students have different technical skills, they also have different backgrounds and experience so the way in which they process these technical skills will be different too. In my experience in using technology with students, they can navigate the internet easily and efficiently, but many of them cannot tell if what they are seeing is accurate information or not.  They tend to take what they see as true and correct, and rarely question the integrity of the content they are viewing.

From my 15 years of classroom experience, I also agree with Marc Prensky when he states that “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work.”  As a result, according to Prensky, teachers, who are often digital immigrants, will have to find better and more creative ways to engage their digital natives in order to keep them interested and engaged.  Although I believe this to be true, it still does not take into account the depth to which youth understand the given information.  Just because they are used to receiving information fast while multi-tasking at the same time, doesn’t give the educator a complete picture as to how they are processing the information they are receiving, and whether or not the information is complete and accurate.