(Dear Clara: You probably did not see my first post in this week, because I had set it private instead of restricted, sorry, do read that one first though, please.)

 Having read all the articles for this week, not just the core two, I am simply amazed, and also amazed at the discussion in the discussion board. Nine years ago, Prensky coins a pair of terms: digital natives vs immigrants, and we have net generation and millennials (why do the British write millenial - only one n?) as well, and gosh the educational literature is still all over the guy. It was a metaphor to make a point, a simple rhetorical trick. Now, nine years later, time and again it has been proven that there is not much to the whole idea of digital natives, the data doesn't support the claims about the skills of digital natives. So please can we close the discussion and move on to a more interesting subject?

Below a short review of the articles. Apologies for not quoting correctly, I am in a hurry.

Jones, Ramanau, Cross, Healing / Net generation or Digital Natives

When reviewing the literature they already come to the conclusion that there is much evidence against the claims, still we get another survey. "Despite the growth of this evidence base the arguments about a new Net generation or Digital Natives persists (sic) in a popular discourse which is replicated in policy and practitioner literatures." (p. 724) In my own experience from reading the 'policy and practitioner literature', interest in the methaphor has waned in the past few years. A quick search im some selected databases would give a clue as to who is right. I don't have the time for that now. Interestingly enough, I find that there is a disconnect being introduced here between educational theorists and policy makers and practitioners. Not really smart when you set out to criticize a (perceived) disconnect between natives and immigrants.

Table 5 (p. 729) has a real whopper of a typo: "Contributed to a block". Wow, to me it seems the authors don't even know what a blog is.

Table 6 (p. 730) shows that self reported skills of under 25 are consistently higher than those of over 25. My statistics knowledge is to rusty to delve deeper into this.

Main takeaway: none, just another survey confirming what we already know.

Bayne,  Ross / 'Digital native' and 'digital immigrant' discourses: a critique

Second page: "Our view is that this is a discourse which - despite its clear limitations - is becoming internalised by many in higher education (...)". See my remark above regarding my experience that the the interest in the metaphor is waning.

Fourth page: "Any argument can be dismissed if it is spoken in the accent of an immigrant." I think this is stretching the metaphor a bit.

Sixth page: "The terms 'digital immigrant' and 'digital native' are now in such common usage that it is easy to forget they are metaphors (...)." I did a Google (.com, .uk may yield different results) search and found 20,100 hits on the first phrase and 80,100 on the second phrase. Somehow this indicates to me that the phrases are not all that common and that the emphasis is on the natives rather than the immigrants.

Sixth page: colonists and missionaries are introduced, again, the metaphor is stretched and almost becomes ridiculous. Where do these words all of a sudden come from, am I missing a reference?

Main takeaway: take care when using metaphors.

Sharon Stoerger / The digital melting pot

" (...) over time, [metaphors] become inaccurate and dangerous." (p.1 in the abstract). Couldn't she just have left it at that instead of introducing yet another metaphor. Reviews a lot of literature but I miss synthesis.

Main takeaway: none

Bennet, Maton, Kervin / The digital natives debate

Solid article, well written and structured. Mentions Larry Cuban's book 'Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom'. A book I enjoyed reading and from which I learned that you can learn more about e-learning by reading critical texts than by reading the evangelists.

Main takeaway: Prensky accidentally found a way to create a 'moral panic'. Question is: isn't the panic over by now?

Prensky / Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, part I and II (wasn't on the list)

Part I. Ah, page 2, that's where Bayne and Ross got the immigrant's accent. In that same paragraph, it is quite funny to see how outdated the examples are for recognizing immigrants (turning to the internet for information second, reading a manual).

It's a pamphlet, very well written.

Part II Mainly about neuroplasticity. Interesting read.

Main takeaway: you can also read Prensky's text (part I) as a case for game based learning.

Prensky  / ... Digital Wisdom

See? "(...) we need to imagine a new set of distinctions." (first page) The guy just loves oppositions, a strong rhetorical device indeed. Nothing much new here, yes technology can be a powerful ally to enhance our abilities.

Main takeaway: this metaphor hasn't catched on, I don't think it will.

Kennedy, Judd, Churchward, Gray, Krause / First year students' experiences with technology: Are the really digital natives?

No, they're not, but we knew that already, didn't we? Amused to see that they asked about PDAs (table 1), but hey, the survey is from 2006 (in digital terms the nineteenth century). Smartphones with mobile access to the web are rapidly on the rise now. Amazed that 38.5 percent had no games console (table 2), probably much lower now. 62.9 percent did not use a social networking site (table 4), just goes to show how quickly things change.

Main takeaway: none, it confirms what we knew from the ECAR studies.

Pew / Millennials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit.

I only read the overview. I think they are making a mistake when they interpret social networking as 'broadcasting'. it's really 'narrowcasting'.

Main takeaway: none.

Spiegel Online / The internet generation prefers the real world

I liked this one, even though it uncritically repeats stupid examples (multitasking, 'I found it on Google'). It confirms what I earlier said about Schulmeister's meta-analysis (up to 70 now), and the guy is even quoted. I am amazed that young people still watch over two hours television per day (I gave that medium up 5 years ago, signal noise ratio is near zero). What I really like is near the end the teacher who uses web 2.0 in his teaching. That's what the debate should focus on.

Main takeaway: "So instead of tech-savvy young netizens challenging the school, the school itself is painstakingly teaching them how to benefit from the online medium." (p.5, at least on my printout). Yes, and probably making school a lot more interesting at the same time.

And that also indicates what I think would be a much more interesting discussion.

Sorry, long post. See you tomorrow in the chat.

I'll be off next week for my vacation. Will download the literature for next week and read and think about it on the beach and come back with a blog post October 11 or 12, will review discussion board and TWitter archive after that and write a second blogpost about next week's subject. Okay?