Legitimate digital participation

So i've read a few blogs and heard some discussion about Mark Prensky's metaphor of digital immigrants and digital natives. I thought I would present my view on this issue and a way that I perceive what Prensky is talking about. You'll get the play on words later.

First, I must state that his terminology of immigrants and natives is, at best, a way to simply convey a meaning to the 'general public' and at worst a poor choice of words overall. I don't really like the terms as they present a stigma on the old and the young. As a fellow student pointed out on her blog (sleeping alone and starting out early):

"We need to consider how this metaphor--taken up so widely in our cultural conversations--continues to reify a divide in participation based on gender, class, and ethnicity. Even those who subscribe to the Prensky metaphor have to concede that not all young people can be considered "natives" by his definition, and not all old people can be considered "immigrants." When we make the sweeping proclamation that kids these days are digital natives, what we're really doing is identifying the type of kid whose practices and ways of being in the world have gone mainstream."

I couldn't agree more and this is the problem with the terminology he uses to describe the divide between those savvy in the new media landscape and those not so savvy. What got me thinking about Prensky's premise was when he noted in the first paragraph of his paper was
"[t]oday’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach."


When I think about that deeper, the radical change is that now students (youths or natives in Prensky's term) are in the center and the educators (older folks) are now the incoming--on the periphery--of the 'new media' culture.

Thats right all you LS students. If you haven't seen this book yet, you will? But it's actually a quick and interesting read. Ok, enough of the stellar review.

Lets rethink what Prensky is saying. The advent of new technologies and media has advanced faster than anything in our history. Think about how long it took for the radio to catch on and once it did, the television came along, but again, it took years and years for it to be a common houshold item.

Now, computers, cell phones, internet access, and whatever other advancement you can think of is now out there for anyone to engage (I won't get into the issue of the Participation Gap that Henry Jenkins brings up). So what has happened is educators (adults) have now become the 'new-commers' and the youth have become the 'old-timers'.

So what has happened is that the 'old-timers' do not know how apprentice the 'new-comers'. Then the divide happens. "Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach." And i say, of course they're not, the people our educational system was designed to teach were on the periphery of the community and now they are in the center.
So how can new media/technologies be designed to scaffold the 'new-commers'? Or is that even the issue? I seem to always go back to the engagement (participatory/motivational) issue when it comes to new media/technologies. Is it possible that the 'new-comers' have not found a reason to engage with these new media landscapes?

Additional comments:
So I've been asked to elaborate on my thinking on situated learning and any differences to constructionism. First, I must say that when I made the legitimate peripheral participation metaphor I did so to combat Prensky's Native's vs. Immigrants comparison and make sense of what Prensky was saying. It also didn't hurt to try and think of it in terms of a learning theory that is prevelant in LS.

So, I'm not an expert on any one learning theory. I have also not alligned myself with any camp exclusively. I feel each has their unique view and i like to "remix" or "creatively borrow" from each. With that said, lets first look at the basic tenants of Situated learning and Constructionism.

Situated learning: Basically learning takes place in a community of practice in which there are experts (old-timers) and novices (new-comers). Old-timers apprentice the new-comers into the community through scaffolding. Essentially learning occurs in the same place in which it is applied. An example from the Lave and Wenger book is tailors and how the expert tailors apprentice the incoming tailors.

Constructionism: While you can't really define constructionism (cause we all construct the artifact differently), I'll just say that learning in constructionism takes place when the learner is constructing an artifact that is meaningful to the community or culture to which they belong.

These are over-simplified definitions of both. So, what are the differences between the two? I think the big difference is the focus of constructing some sort of artifact in constructionism, where situated learning is concerned with participation and apprenticeship within a community.

However, i think both share some common qualities that are sociocultural in nature. The one common theme being community (or culture). Constructionism is not simply about 'discovery learning' or that learning is an individual construct. And, situated isn't just concerned with apprenticeship with no concern for artifacts.

This is something I hope to continue to write about, but right now, my duties as a dad are calling. I knew i shouldn't have started this so early in the morning.