Hello World!! Just want to send a quick ‘Howdy!’ to everyone before doing my first official post. Thanks to fellow edugeek Matt for letting me join in! Jumping right in…
Recently, I attended the North Texas Regional Community College Technology Forum, a one-day conference that focused on educational technology used in community colleges. One session I found particularly interesting discussed methods used (online, hybrid, face-to-face) in teaching information literacy – how to effectively search for information on the internet and how to discern whether or not the information found is applicable and valid.
A few years back, I worked as a technology integration specialist for a school district, and one thing that struck me as I sat through this session was how the concepts and skills discussed that the presenters are trying to teach to our students are pretty much exactly the same as those I was training my K-12 teachers to teach to their students.
It amazes me how teaching students how to perform an efficient Google search and how to determine if a site is valid is appropriate in both a K-12 setting as well as in higher ed. I know the reason for this is the dramatic increase in information available online as well as the increase in usage of online resources for research and study. I just find it interesting that learners of all ages are having to educate themselves on these skills. Thoughts?
Howdy folks! I’m an Instructional Designer at UT Dallas. I have a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Angelo State University and a Master’s in Computer Education and Cognitive Systems from the University of North Texas. I’ve been working in edtech for 11 years. Hmm… what else? I’m a *huge* fan of that little Irish band called U2, and I’m a bigtime Firefly/Serenity advocate.
I think this just goes to show that just because someone is a digital native, that doesn’t make them a digital expert. I think that should be the third classification in the whole “digital native” – “Digital immigrant” discussion. Both the immigrants and natives can learn to be masters, and that probably would be a great equalizer.
We prefer the term ‘digital guru’. :P
I was going to say “digital masters of all domains”, but that sounded a little too pretentious.
I think the distinction does need to be explored more, because there are some digital immigrants that are more tech savvy than the so-called digital natives.