I've heard back from Amy Gray at the Guardian and I'm still waiting to have my questions answered by Dr. David Nelson, a Parenting professor at BYU. He did respond once! Here's my ROUGH outline:
Intro
P1 What are digital natives and digital immigrants-Prensky
P2 How have times changed? Analog to digital; dvd/cd/internet/school/friends/social lives-Barr
P3 What do parents need to consider now? how do i track them; when do i introduce them Studies by Lee, Leung and Wong
P4 Are there still concerns? lack of focus; add; trouble; early exposure-Houle
P5 What are the benefits? multitasking; communicating; monitoring-Palfrey and Gasser
Conclusion
Some sources I'm trying to use:
2. The influences of information literacy, internet addiction and parenting styles on internet risks
3. Yu Cheung Wong “Cyber-Parenting: Internet Benefits, Risks and
Parenting Issues”
http://web.ebscohost.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=fc3f4ce2-1359-4f15-b638-93897a68fd09%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=120
4. Leticia Barr http://www.parents.com/blogs/tech-savvy-parents/2013/05/01/education/how-to-parent-in-the-digital-age-raising-digital-families-amy-lupold-bair/
5. Marc Prensky
6. John Palfrey and Urs Gasser Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
And here's part of my draft that I have NOT edited or formatted, so I feel like I'm walking outside undressed by posting it already:
Digital Natives Raising Digital Natives
The progressive nature of technology simultaneously brings ease and convenience in daily tasks, as well as a constantly changing learning curve that is quickly adopted by each new generation. This swift seizure of digital devices and such by youngsters places parents in a quandary as their children, digital natives, far outsmart them in technological matters. Such practices have occurred since the early 1990’s and will continue to happen, but the situation has changed, as digital natives are now becoming parents. There is an extensive market for non-digital parents (digital immigrants) on how to raise children in a digital world, however none have yet addressed savvy digital natives and their familial dynamics. I intend to substantiate formal research regarding parenting in a digital age, with several modern adaptations for not only the new generation of children, but the new generation of parents.
Marc Prensky coined the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant,” in his 2001 book Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and I will use the phrases as he defies them. After consideration of other terms, Prensky concludes:
But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants. The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past. The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. Today‟s older folk were "socialized" differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain” (Prensky 1-2).
Prensky’s book primarily focuses on digital immigrant instructors educating digital natives, but he includes universal examples of digital adoption and “accents” including: printing out an email, bringing co-workers to a computer to see an online video, as opposed to sending it to them and calling somebody to inquire if he received an email. Clearly, these are not bad habits, but they do represent a cultural shift from natives who are characterized as, Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to
parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than
the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when
networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards” (Prensky 2). In the twelve years since Prensky published his findings, authors and researchers have amplified his ideas through studies and books on learning styles, internet usage effects and parenting guidelines. Even Oprah Winfrey, media mogul, addresses the topic on her website, “This generation cannot remember not having a computer in the home, cannot remember Mom and Dad not having cell phones, cannot remember watching TV without dozens—if not hundreds—of channels, and even more importantly, cannot remember not having access to the Internet.. . . . . Simply put, they are distinctly different than their parents and even different than the older millennials in their late 20s” (Houle). The need for an updated parenting style has been established in academic and social realms since the early 2000’s and many educators and parents are recognizing and reacting for their children. As we approach 2014, there is a new market opening as the first generation of digital natives start families. How do we adapt parenting advice on raising children in a digital society to parents who were born into said digital society?
There is a marked difference in digital immigrant and native parenting as natives are much more willing to embrace technology. For instance, I, born in 1990, grew up in environments that constantly discouraged the use of cell phones, video games and instant messaging, most especially in public. Currently in 2013, two of my friends’ children have the opportunity to “bring technology to school” several times in the year where they and other students are taught how to use various applications and programs. My friends and their children enjoy this school outreach method. Amy Lupold Blair, author of How to Raise a Digital Family, reminds readers that even digital native parents will still be outmatched by their children, “ I think that if parents start by asking their kids to share what they know about each of the digital topics covered in the book, they’ll be surprised at how willing most kids are to take the lead in getting the entire family on the same page. Topics like cyberbullying and online safety are the native language of the current generation of kids, all of them digital natives . . . . . It is only fitting that they should also discuss these topics at home and be provided with parameters and support by their parents” (Barr). Digital immigrant parents are hesitant to relinquish their children to the technological world because it is one they were not able to explore themselves at the same age, thus creating a barrier between them and digital native parents who do not fear such things like toddlers playing with iPads or pre-teens with smart phones because of their own comfort with the digital world as children.
The major differences between “analog” parenting and “digital” parenting can be overwhelming. In the space of ten years, technology implemented itself into homes and lives like a weed in a garden.
As a parent, the game has certainly changed as children now have instant knowledge at their fingertips and thus demands that parents maintain their authority iin another manner. “Studies—and, certainly, parental experiences—show that digital natives can concentrate on more than one thing at a time. In my opinion, the huge percentage increase in the diagnosis of attention deficient disorder in American children in the past 20 years is largely due to a combination of two factors: First, they can concentrate on more than one thing at a time; and second, we don't think they can! Now, of course, there are children who truly do have ADD, just as there are adults that do” (Houle).
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