A few years ago at a conference, a speaker extolled the virtues of the younger generations - digital natives - and the need for education and educators to change. By itself, this is obvious. Kids no longer do long-form reading or write/read cursive. Their attention spans and educational attainment (at least in the US) has been described as in crisis stages.
However, the speaker cited theorists such as Marc Prensky, who assert that these natives speak such a different 'language,' and that "digital immigrant" teachers/managers/etc., are nothing more than "a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners." The presentation went on to talk about how kids brains are even wired differently - questioning the value of education and related professions.
I decided that I needed to learn much more about this. The resulting article, "Digital Natives & Immigrants: What Brain Research Tells Us," is the result of over a year's reading and interviews with some of the leading researchers in brain science. In terms of learning style and product marketing, the arguments make a lot of sense - most of the rest appears to be nonsense.
Are there brains really different, better? I like this assessment from Apostolos Georgopoulos, University of Minnesota Regents Professor and director of the University's Center for Cognitive Sciences from the article: "There is absolutely no scientific basis for claiming that young people's brains have changed in recent times or that there is such a major difference between the brain at different ages. There isn't a shred of scientific evidence to back up these claims. This is totally unfounded. All of this is really a form of "just so" stories. People say something that they feel speaks to their beliefs and others listen and believe it too, but it has no basis in fact. Brains change but not in the way implied by those statements."
See for yourself!
I'd love to hear your comments!
"Digital Natives & Immigrants: What Brain Research Tells Us," ONLINE 33(6):14-1, November/December 2009.
Final Article.Digital Natives.pdf
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