Sylvia Martinez is one of my favourite writers because she presents well-reasoned and thoughtful arguments about the relationship between pedagogy and technology use. Her latest post , digital natives immigrants – how much do we love this slogan, discusses the traps involved in using catchphrases when we discuss the complexities of learning. The whole digital native thing, while it may be useful at face value, “is an excuse for not actually teaching them [students] about technology. Even if we accept that many students are more facile and less intimidated by technology that many adults, it doesn’t mean they know anything.”

“Digital natives they may be, but they still need teachers and parents. Kids need adults to guide them to use these tools wisely and for appropriate academic purposes. A teacher can take them further and to a place with real meaning. Parents can model values. Kids are less afraid of technology, and don’t usually worry about breaking things, but this doesn’t translate to intellectual curiousity or comprehending boundaries. They are just used to having technology around, but also more than willing to just ignore it when it isn’t immediately obvious what to do with it.

If we walk away from our responsibility to teach them about appropriate, academic uses of technology, it’s our fault when silly, or worse, inappropriate uses of technology fill that vacuum.”

Despite the fact that most students are able users of technology for entertainment, gaming and social networking, this does not translate into an ability to to use these tools for academic purposes: to think critically, research or analyse the multiplicity of perspectives that exist. Nor does it necessarily help students to make connections and work as collaborative learners in a system established to foster competition. Most students will present their “research” from the first page of a google search without specific guidance. They need teachers to help them develop skills to identify the reliability, bias and perspectives of different sources and to overcome the idea that if doesn’t show up in a shallow web search it doesn’t exist. In an information-rich age it is also vital that we adequately prepare students so they are able to recognise “misinformation” when it, inevitably, appears. The martinlutherking.org site is a prime example of this, written by a former KKK member to discredit and defame King as an “anti-America communist” using dubious, anti-civil rights government documents to present a revisitionist, racist version of history.

An important point is that students use technology seamlessly when it serves an obvious function, so it is vital that we use technology that is purposeful – as a collaborative research, writing and publishing tool – rather than for it’s own sake or as an afterthought.

Sylvia also writes that: “And just like “digital native” is an easy label, “digital immigrant” creates the same problem in reverse by providing a convenient excuse for teachers who don’t want to learn something new. I have all the sympathy in the world for teachers who are overburdened, and who patiently listen to all the hype that never pans out. But it’s 2007. The world is changing.”

The world is changing, the landscape of education is changing (albeit slowly) and these false dichomoties create “simply the wrong mental picture for a collaborative learning environment where teachers and students are all lifelong learners.”