Characteristics of a Digital Native

Characteristics of a Digital Native

Following is a compilation of characteristics of 21st-century learners gleaned from a variety of sources, including an American Association of School Librarians blog, high school and university student interviews, and Kim Jones, vice president of global education for Sun Microsystems.

• Multimedia oriented
• Web-based
• Less fear of failure
• Instant gratification
• Impatient
• Nonlinear
• Multitasker
• Less textual, more modalities
• Active involvement
• Very creative
• Less structured
• Expressive
• Extremely social
• Need a sense of security that they are defining for and by themselves
• Egocentric
• Preference for electronic environments
• Have electronic friends
• Thrive with redefined structure
• Surface-oriented
• Information overload
• Widening gap to information access
• Share a common language
• Risk takers
• Technology is a need
• Aren’t looking for the right answer
• Feel a sense of entitlement
• Constant engagement
• All information is equal
• No cultural distinctions (global)
• Striving to be independent

—with acknowledgment to Diane Beaman

And we wonder why some of them won’t pay attention when we give them simple pen and paper work. These students are longing for more and we need to figure out how to teach them in a way that will reach them.

Here is a video that goes well with this blog post from TeacherTube (Cool Cat Teacher Blog introduced me to this–didn’t even know it existed).  Why should we teach technology to students?