Digital native
Above is a picture of Levi Jackson Pearson, my great
grandson. He’s holding what he is
pretending (at 17 months) is a cell phone. Levi is part of the generation of
digital natives. It’s likely he’ll be texting before he starts kindergarten,
easily handling an ipad- or whatever new thing replaces it in the next few
years.
Yetta and I were at the Consejo de Lecto-escritura de
Guatemala’s Ninth International Literacy Conference last week. Cell phones are
cheap there and even poor kids seem to have access to them, by hook or by
crook.
Human beings need to connect – we’re social animals that
cannot survive by ourselves. And modern technology makes it possible to connect
easily over small or great distances.
While we were in Guatemala we skyped
(new verb) with family in Edmonton Alberta and Houston Texas. Levi, now
19 months looked at our screen images and said distinctly “Who’s that?” And it
didn’t cost us anything to connect.
I draw two major lessons from all this.
1.
The distinctions between oral and written language
are now completely blurred
2.
With access to connecting digital devices kids will learn to read and
write as easily as they now learn to speak and listen. Many are already doing
so. What will be important in the future is access. In the United States access
is controlled and expensive.
What that means is that those with access will be ahead of
those without access. So the gap between rich and poor will widen.
We need to begin a campaign to level the playing field.
1.
We need to make cell phones non-proprietary as
they are in most of the world.
2.
There needs to be universal access to hi-fi. The
ether should be as available as air and water
3.
Schools need to recognize the digital natives
and support and further their new competence.
We need to fight even harder to against 19th
century curriculum and medieval methodology.
Power to the little people!
