From the Head of School

Digital Natives?

Anyone born after 1990 is in danger of being labelled a ‘digital native’: someone born into the internet age, emailing as soon as they could write, and facebooking about their first play date.  Those of us born into one of the many decades before can easily assume that young people ‘just know’ how to operate a smartphone or look something up on google.

In some senses that is true: when I grew up nearly all UK families owned a car; they were rarities in my parents’ generation; I did have a better instinctive road sense than them, a more honed anticipation of what may happen, but that didn’t mean I could drive a car without instruction and certainly not well or safely.

Our children feel comfortable around computers, and they probably do have a better instinct about how new software might work than us.  But they still need to be taught.  And just as we learn to drive on the same roads we will use after we pass our test, students need to learn IT in context.

This week, I was in a Grade 6 Health class.  The topic was ‘Making Good Decisions’ - the students had already engaged with the content, and were now making a slide presentation.  The teacher projected one of these slides on to the board for the class to discuss.  Was there too much text? What about the choice of colour?  Is that the best picture to illustrate the point?  

The students learnt the technology - manipulating text, inserting pictures, transitions, clips ...  and then how to use it for best effect - the purpose and the audience, all in a meaningful and usable context: demonstrating their subject understanding.  More importantly they practiced the dispositions for excellence in any activity: focused reflection, a willingness to listen, an ability to offer constructive criticism to build others up.  

Even before the pandemic, IT was an everyday part of our lives; using these tools well takes technical expertise; it also takes wisdom and good judgement.  Digital natives are no more likely to take to those qualities without direction as any other generation.