By Mrs Anna Hardy, Acting Deputy Principal

Are Students Really Digital Natives?

A common phrase that we hear to describe our generation of adolescents is ‘digital natives.’  However, teachers report that many students, despite being "digital natives," need guidance to use social media beyond entertainment purposes (ASCD, 2019).  Educators and parents need to find the delicate balance.  Rather than seeing online platforms as a distraction, devices need to be harnessed for teaching and learning purposes. Students need direction and guidance on how to use these devices for educational purposes.  Digital literacy is important for students and is not always skills that they have ‘learnt’ as digital natives. 

School devices need to have a line between "educational technology" and "personal technology".  School-issued tablets or laptops are for learning and official curriculum while personal tech is for entertainment and communication.

However, from a student perspective, there is no such separation in day-to-day usage. This is the difficulty for educators and parents alike.  They may take notes on their phones, email their parents from a school tablet, play educational or commercial games on a school laptop, or ask friends about homework in a group text from a personal device.  It may be important to have distinctions between school and personal tech, but it is equally important to acknowledge that these distinctions are frequently irrelevant to our students.

By directly addressing the challenges as well as the benefits technology might pose, teachers provide more opportunities for learning, increase trust, and improve classroom harmony (ASCD, 2019). 

Students are rapidly assimilating skills in gaming, search tools, social media, and texting. Things are bound to go wrong sometimes, so it important to look for methods of repair than to simply focus on prevention of problems students may encounter when using these tools. Prevention is so central to many digital citizenship or "tech safety" curricula that this shift can take some time to adjust to, but repair is crucial.

In each of these cases, it is worth asking students these questions:

In what situations should students involve parents or teachers? When should they handle it on their own?

What might make situations easier to resolve?

How can we avoid a repeat or similar situation?

Would it be better to resolve this conflict in person or via email or text?

These questions work for a whole host of scenarios, from "everyday" social conflict to more intense situations where parent and educator involvement is called for. These questions can help our students see the implications of their actions and understand the transgression of boundaries. By talking through the scenarios with them, we provide students with a set of tools to handle peer conflicts without making them more intense.

ASCD Express, 2019, Teaching with social media.  Retrieved on 21/10/2019 from http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol15/num03/toc.aspx?utm_source=ascdexpress&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Express%2015-03.