“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:
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