Digital Natives Are Not – They Just Are
March 4th, 2010
Ever had one of those moments where, in a second, some random bit of information unexpectedly clicks and your world makes so much more sense?
Being a librarian, my most recent example came reading the title of Bobbi Newman's recent post, For Digital Natives There Is No Web 2.0. Yes, of course. For kids growing up with the internet of today, this is their Web 1.0 - because they've never known anything else.
This is a total (probably long overdue) mindshift for me. My library is currently trying to figure out how to use Web 2.0 tools to reach kids in our community, and this one title changed the way I think about the task. We talk about tools kids may or may not use in their daily life, but for many kids, these tools are their daily lives.
This realization actually makes our task easier, but it certainly raises the bar for how good a job we need to do.
The video that prompted Bobbi's post is below. She also points out in a subsequent post what a digital native is not.
From the New Canaan High School Library
