“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prensky
In his article March Prensky talks about how teenagers are Digital Naives. The idea is simple enough seeing as how if you grow up around something, like computers, it just seems natural to you. I have to wonder whether Prensky thinks that Digital Natives are in fact a positive thing. couldn’t he just be saying something to the effect of “those youngsters spend too much time on their dang computers and that’s why they know how to work everything.” Isn’t Prensky basically saying that if it is not on the computer screen, teenagers and young adults simply don’t know how to do it? that’s why I get out of it.
And what about class? The way Prensky describes it, you would think that every teenager in America has a computer to sit at all day. My family didn’t have computer in the home until I was in Jr. High, and I know people today that still don’t have computers at home. In Prensky’s world these people would be immigrants. It might just be me but the term immigrant seems a little harsh. Sure if your sitting down at a computer for the first time it can be difficult, but to relate it to coming to a new country were customs and even language is completely different? It just doesn’t seem right. I know older people that I work with that never used a computer in their lives before they started to work for the company. But hell, after sitting down and playing around with it for a few days, they just sort of got the hang of it. I have a feeling that it would take more then a few days to get the hang of things after moving to another country.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick.
Like so many in the world i am completely obsessed with Harry Potter. I started to read the books when i was a freshman in high school, which i can assure you did not help my social status at all, not that i really cared. I was one of the crazy people that you saw on the news waiting at midnight for the newest book to come out, or the movie to be released. at one book release there were so many people waiting to find out what happened to Harry that we could not all be in the building because of the fire codes.
The question is, in a world where teenagers are supposed to be digital natives, constantly on their computers, how was JK Rowling able to intrigue us all with the simple story of harry potter and his journey in the wizarding world?
The basic story of HP for those that don't know, is Harry is orphaned at the age of one when his parents are murdered by the main villain in the series, Lord Voldermort. Harry has no idea about his because he is taken into the muggle world away from everything so that he will be able to grow up 'normal'. When he is 11, Harry is told about who he really is and begins his wizard training at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Over the next seven years the reader follows harry through his school years and his battle against his parents murder.
What always interested me was the way that JK Rowling was able to make Harry and the rest of his wizarding friends seem like everyday teenagers. We get to see Harry go normal teenage stages: his first kiss, the fantastic teenage angst and his first love, all set in the background of a magically world. This reminded me of the Marc Prenski article where it is said that all teenagers have a similar experience. How could a boy wizard and I have the same experience? Well sadly i have never battled a dragon or been attacked by a rouge bludger that was bewitched by a house elf, but i have had to deal with the awkwardness of having a first crush, feeling like no one, not even my best friends understand what I'm going through and felt like adults were hiding thing from me because i wasn't 'mature' enough to handle the truth, and (at least on Harry' s part) learning how to deal with the deaths of people that were close to you.
There has been a lot of discussion about the role of women in harry potter, as all the main characters who get all the action are male, but I'm going to stand up for my girl hermione. If you've ever read the books you know how many people have called her the brightest witch her age, and frankly if it weren't for her brains harry and Ron probably would have died in the first book (devils snare anyone). Throughout the series it is Hermione's brain that saved...pretty much everyone at some point.
The idea that for teenagers living away from their families, their schoolmates become a new family is obvious in HP. Hogwarts is a place where the students live during the school year and they have their own little cliques which substitute their families. All communication with their families at home is by owl post (there is no electricity at Hogwarts so no email for these guys!) so if you want to know whats going on at home you need to be patient. Friends are important to any teenager which is one of th reasons that Harry Potter can be read by older people. In fact im going to be bold enough to say that teenagers probably get more out of the books then small children who are just reading it of the entertainment factor. Dragons, elves, wizards and quidditch are all seen as fun for the young kids, but at least for me it was the situations that harry had to deal with that made the books worth reading. over and over and over......
and just because this is awesome:
The question is, in a world where teenagers are supposed to be digital natives, constantly on their computers, how was JK Rowling able to intrigue us all with the simple story of harry potter and his journey in the wizarding world?
The basic story of HP for those that don't know, is Harry is orphaned at the age of one when his parents are murdered by the main villain in the series, Lord Voldermort. Harry has no idea about his because he is taken into the muggle world away from everything so that he will be able to grow up 'normal'. When he is 11, Harry is told about who he really is and begins his wizard training at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Over the next seven years the reader follows harry through his school years and his battle against his parents murder.
What always interested me was the way that JK Rowling was able to make Harry and the rest of his wizarding friends seem like everyday teenagers. We get to see Harry go normal teenage stages: his first kiss, the fantastic teenage angst and his first love, all set in the background of a magically world. This reminded me of the Marc Prenski article where it is said that all teenagers have a similar experience. How could a boy wizard and I have the same experience? Well sadly i have never battled a dragon or been attacked by a rouge bludger that was bewitched by a house elf, but i have had to deal with the awkwardness of having a first crush, feeling like no one, not even my best friends understand what I'm going through and felt like adults were hiding thing from me because i wasn't 'mature' enough to handle the truth, and (at least on Harry' s part) learning how to deal with the deaths of people that were close to you.
There has been a lot of discussion about the role of women in harry potter, as all the main characters who get all the action are male, but I'm going to stand up for my girl hermione. If you've ever read the books you know how many people have called her the brightest witch her age, and frankly if it weren't for her brains harry and Ron probably would have died in the first book (devils snare anyone). Throughout the series it is Hermione's brain that saved...pretty much everyone at some point.
The idea that for teenagers living away from their families, their schoolmates become a new family is obvious in HP. Hogwarts is a place where the students live during the school year and they have their own little cliques which substitute their families. All communication with their families at home is by owl post (there is no electricity at Hogwarts so no email for these guys!) so if you want to know whats going on at home you need to be patient. Friends are important to any teenager which is one of th reasons that Harry Potter can be read by older people. In fact im going to be bold enough to say that teenagers probably get more out of the books then small children who are just reading it of the entertainment factor. Dragons, elves, wizards and quidditch are all seen as fun for the young kids, but at least for me it was the situations that harry had to deal with that made the books worth reading. over and over and over......
and just because this is awesome:
Monday, April 28, 2008
Listen Up!
While looking at the ListenUp website i found that it was a very professional looking site, but also that it wasn't exactly user friendly. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to naviagte the site which makes me think that if a teenager were to stubble on to this site, they may not take the time to learn the site. Of course by me saying this im making the assumption that teens need something to be fun and colorful inorder to be interested in it. but thats not what i mean. what i mean is that i normally would consider myself a "digital native" but i had trouble using the site at first, and i know that when i get frustrated online i just go to a new page. but thats just me.
While browsing the site, I found some videos that were just sort of funny, and then Nick recommended Resurrection which was a brilliantly horrifying video about a man try to play God. his son falls down the stairs and breaks his neck which kills him. The man injects a chemical into the sons arm which causes him to come back to life....kind of. he basically becomes a freaky zombie and kills his mom and another girl in the park. When the dad finds the boy in the park he shoots him, thinking that he has undone his mistake. yet when he gets home he discovers that his wife managed to inject herself before she died, so of course she comes back to life and hits her husband over the head with a hammer. first off the sound that makes made me cringe. second of all i took this as saying that there are something things in life that you should not try to change. Things happen for a reason and if you try to change it something bad will happen.
Another amazing video was Queens of NY which is about a 17 yr old girl who went out and interviewed drag queens of New York City. it was very impressive that this girl made the connection between herself and the Queens. Not because she was a Queen but because in her mind they both did not fit into the dominant culture, but at the same did not want to change who they were inorder to mold themselves into "normal." this was a fantastic video.
here are some other videos that were pretty cool
A Kids expericence in Zombie land
Locks of Gold I really liked this one. its narrated by a girl and she talking about kids who donate their hair to the Locks of Love organization, which is one that ive worked with in the past.
Delbert is quite possible the cutest movie about a child's imagination and their abiltiy to make frineds. its not in english but there are subtitles. however i think i would understand even if there werent.
And now that i've figured out how to use this site, i think it may become one of the ones i visit often.
While browsing the site, I found some videos that were just sort of funny, and then Nick recommended Resurrection which was a brilliantly horrifying video about a man try to play God. his son falls down the stairs and breaks his neck which kills him. The man injects a chemical into the sons arm which causes him to come back to life....kind of. he basically becomes a freaky zombie and kills his mom and another girl in the park. When the dad finds the boy in the park he shoots him, thinking that he has undone his mistake. yet when he gets home he discovers that his wife managed to inject herself before she died, so of course she comes back to life and hits her husband over the head with a hammer. first off the sound that makes made me cringe. second of all i took this as saying that there are something things in life that you should not try to change. Things happen for a reason and if you try to change it something bad will happen.
Another amazing video was Queens of NY which is about a 17 yr old girl who went out and interviewed drag queens of New York City. it was very impressive that this girl made the connection between herself and the Queens. Not because she was a Queen but because in her mind they both did not fit into the dominant culture, but at the same did not want to change who they were inorder to mold themselves into "normal." this was a fantastic video.
here are some other videos that were pretty cool
A Kids expericence in Zombie land
Locks of Gold I really liked this one. its narrated by a girl and she talking about kids who donate their hair to the Locks of Love organization, which is one that ive worked with in the past.
Delbert is quite possible the cutest movie about a child's imagination and their abiltiy to make frineds. its not in english but there are subtitles. however i think i would understand even if there werent.
And now that i've figured out how to use this site, i think it may become one of the ones i visit often.
Listen up!
ok so not to throw out excuses, but this week has been insane. anyone else taking a seminar knows what im talking about. anyway i waited to write this till i got to school, only to find that i did not have my headphone. :( go figure. but i will have this up as soon as i can.
Friday, April 25, 2008
That's why her hairs so big...it's full of secrets.
I love the movie Mean Girls. Many of you may know that is about a young girl Cady, played by the infamous Lindsay Lohan, who was going to high school for the first time. She lived in Africa for twelve years and basically had a huge culture shock on her first day of school. She was the weird girl who didn't fit in anywhere. She makes two genuine friends, the gay guy and the goth chick, but soon she finds that to be popular you need to be in the "plastics" or teen royalty. Cady and her two friends decide to infiltrate the plastic world and tear it a part. as with many teen movies, ciaos ensues. through out the movie Cady becomes one of the plastics and begins to ruin the queen bee, Regina Georges, life. In order to do this they give her a nutrition bar that makes her gain wait, they get her boyfriend to break up with her, and her two best friends to turn on her. All these things, at least according to the people who made this movie, are the worst things that could possibly happen to a teenage girl.
The first thing that i noticed was that the Plastics were all pretty little white girls and wealthy. The message that this makes is that to the viewer is that in order to be the popular girl in school you have to be both of those things. The only people of any other ethnic background are the outsiders. for example the Indian boy who is on the math team and an aspiring rapper. It was obvious to me that the writers were trying to be funny, and unfortunately a lot of people who saw the movie thought that it was.
The subjects of sex and alcohol both come up in this movie. there are two party scenes that feature teenagers drinking, to the point were Cady has so much to drink that she vomits all over her crushes shoes. At the other party you can see that most of the people there are drinking from the red plastic cups which have for some reason become associated with drinking at parties.
Sex is discussed in two forms. the first is that Regina is cheating on her boyfriend. they hook up once a week in the projection room. i saw this as the makers of the movie saying that girls are not interested in being with just one person, and that they are over sexed. There is also a scene when Regina and her new boyfriend are heavily making out in her bed, when her mom comes in. Now i know that if my mom walked in on something like that she'd flip out and probably kill me. But Regina's mom asks if the two want anything, "a drink, a snack...a condom." Isn't this just saying that all teenagers are having sex and that parents should just accept it because theirs nothing they can do about it?
One of the major things that discussed is how girls gossip. they have the burn book, where they write horrible things about other girls, and the all talk about each other. the scenes with the three way calling from hell shows how the girls were using technology to their advantage. This shows that they were the digital natives, they were using the three way calling to gossip about other people, without knowing that that girl was on the line as well. i found it interesting that while they were showing that teenagers were gifted with technology, the writers did it in such a way that showed them being immature about it.
While this may not be the best movie to watch if your trying to figure out what teenagers are really like, i think its important to see because it is so wrong. The writers took every steretype about teenagers and put it into one movie. thats pretty impressive. but i think they did it to show that what people think about teenagers is completely ridiculous.
The first thing that i noticed was that the Plastics were all pretty little white girls and wealthy. The message that this makes is that to the viewer is that in order to be the popular girl in school you have to be both of those things. The only people of any other ethnic background are the outsiders. for example the Indian boy who is on the math team and an aspiring rapper. It was obvious to me that the writers were trying to be funny, and unfortunately a lot of people who saw the movie thought that it was.
The subjects of sex and alcohol both come up in this movie. there are two party scenes that feature teenagers drinking, to the point were Cady has so much to drink that she vomits all over her crushes shoes. At the other party you can see that most of the people there are drinking from the red plastic cups which have for some reason become associated with drinking at parties.
Sex is discussed in two forms. the first is that Regina is cheating on her boyfriend. they hook up once a week in the projection room. i saw this as the makers of the movie saying that girls are not interested in being with just one person, and that they are over sexed. There is also a scene when Regina and her new boyfriend are heavily making out in her bed, when her mom comes in. Now i know that if my mom walked in on something like that she'd flip out and probably kill me. But Regina's mom asks if the two want anything, "a drink, a snack...a condom." Isn't this just saying that all teenagers are having sex and that parents should just accept it because theirs nothing they can do about it?
One of the major things that discussed is how girls gossip. they have the burn book, where they write horrible things about other girls, and the all talk about each other. the scenes with the three way calling from hell shows how the girls were using technology to their advantage. This shows that they were the digital natives, they were using the three way calling to gossip about other people, without knowing that that girl was on the line as well. i found it interesting that while they were showing that teenagers were gifted with technology, the writers did it in such a way that showed them being immature about it.
While this may not be the best movie to watch if your trying to figure out what teenagers are really like, i think its important to see because it is so wrong. The writers took every steretype about teenagers and put it into one movie. thats pretty impressive. but i think they did it to show that what people think about teenagers is completely ridiculous.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Talking Point
This weeks readings all centered around Myspace and Facebook. THe article by Danah Boyd says something very interesting about comments on myspace being like cultural currency. i went on myspace this weekend and looked at my younger cousins page and the pages of her friends an i have to agree with Boyd. everyday someone leaves a comment, and they all seem to put "Comment Me" at the end of every bulletin they post. Really what does this mean? when you look at my page i get maybe three comments a month, usually someone telling me that i need to update my page or something, but these younger teens seem to think that if your friends dont leave you comments....well their not really your friends after all. Another one of the artifices, the only one to actually interview a teen, quoted them as saying "if your not on myspace, you dont exist." if this really is the attitude of teens in high school where does that leave the teens who do not have Internet access? does that automatically mean that they will never be part of a social circle in highschool because of something as silly as myspace? i hope not!
Of course the articles talk about the dangers of myspace, but what i found interesting was when Boyd said that teens are not creating these spaces as a way to scare their parents, rather they are doing it because they need a space of their own. but whatever happened to the days when teens...oh i dont know...actually went somewhere they called their space? is it really a good thing that teens are spending so much time on their computers on Facebook and Myspace instead of going out adn learning how to interact with people in person? this is a valuable skill which im sorry, you cant get through life without. I am the kind of person who would love to just conduct all my business on the computer...as you may have noticed i dont do that whole speaking in public thing to well, but even i know that in order to go through life, i need to learn to deal with people. Sure the Internet and sites like myspace are a way of creating social networks, but its not enough. you cant learn conversation skills from a computer.
the most interesting article was the one by Elia Powers about the class at Pitzer College about youtube. not only is the subject youtube but every class is filmed by a student and then posted on the site. in theory this is a great idea because you could watch classes again online if you have something missing in your notes of if you missed class. but at the same time, you are not able to get the classroom experience that you need. lets face it, we all know that there would be alot of people who would stop going to class if they knew that they could just watch it from their homes. but is this really a technological advance? can we really replace classroom experience with cyber class? i doubt it.
Of course the articles talk about the dangers of myspace, but what i found interesting was when Boyd said that teens are not creating these spaces as a way to scare their parents, rather they are doing it because they need a space of their own. but whatever happened to the days when teens...oh i dont know...actually went somewhere they called their space? is it really a good thing that teens are spending so much time on their computers on Facebook and Myspace instead of going out adn learning how to interact with people in person? this is a valuable skill which im sorry, you cant get through life without. I am the kind of person who would love to just conduct all my business on the computer...as you may have noticed i dont do that whole speaking in public thing to well, but even i know that in order to go through life, i need to learn to deal with people. Sure the Internet and sites like myspace are a way of creating social networks, but its not enough. you cant learn conversation skills from a computer.
the most interesting article was the one by Elia Powers about the class at Pitzer College about youtube. not only is the subject youtube but every class is filmed by a student and then posted on the site. in theory this is a great idea because you could watch classes again online if you have something missing in your notes of if you missed class. but at the same time, you are not able to get the classroom experience that you need. lets face it, we all know that there would be alot of people who would stop going to class if they knew that they could just watch it from their homes. but is this really a technological advance? can we really replace classroom experience with cyber class? i doubt it.
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