Texto original en inglés:
Este trabajo está inspirado en la crítica de Selwyn
(2009) a la noción de “nativos digitales” creada por Marc Prensky. Se invita a estudiar
las realidades de los jóvenes y los usos de la tecología con mayor profundidad y base empírica. Se incluyen datos sobre las
nuevas generaciones en América Latina, su involucramiento con las nuevas dinámicas
de información, comunicación y políticas públicas educativas relacionadas con
este fenómeno examinado.
++++++
(investigador del Centro de Estudios Educativos)
Introduction
This workwas
inspired by "The digital native-myth and reality" by Selwyn(2009); with
special focus inits claim for more complex, and based on empirical studies,
understandings of young people's realities and uses of technology. In this
sense, some facts about Latin American new generations, their engagement to
digital technologies and public policies related to this in education will be
presented and examined in order to contribute to the digital native debate.
Selwynsummarizes
the main aspects taken into account to depict people born in late twentieth
century and early twenty firs in digital
native literature, as well as reason why this portrait "should be seen more as a discursive than descriptive
device".
According to
Selwin, the digital native is often
seen as empowered by digital technology to control what, how, when and where
they do it; as well as their choice towhom they interact with.
Nevertheless, the digital native is also
presented as in risk, not only to be physical, emotional or sexually damaged, but
further more to be incapable to gather, analyse, comprehend and discern
information. Obviously these opposite pictures have different implications when
it comes to consider the role of adults and institutions that work with young
people.
At the core of the
empowered digital nativeview is the way
the relation of people with information and services has changed. Whilst in the past users played a passive role
as recipients of others' productions -for instance books, television shows,
educational instruction, the new generations are enhanced by technologies like the
Internet to choose, customize and even produce these services themselves. Youtube's
slogan is a good example for this: broadcast
yourself. This empowerment involveseducative implications, as young people
tend to be more autonomous, sociable and critic(Taspcott and Williams;in Selwyn
2009, p.4). Nevertheless the transformation by technology of the
ways young people learn and process information could bring more radical
educative consequences, like Prensky speculates (in Selwyn 2009, p.5).
Disadvantages also
appear in young people's uses of digital technologies,as other commentators
address them. One of the most highlighted is that scholars are replacing
complex learning capabilities like discernment, judge and critic thinking for
web surfing and the copy/paste of other's arguments. It is also said that young
people use new technology and resources for self-promotion rather than for
learning and collaborating.In the extreme these had brought a culture of
disrespect for teachers and traditional practices at educational institutions.
These positive and
negative views of thedigital native
have respective images of the elder generations. From the former, adults are
seen as 'digital migrants' that are not fluent in the language of technology
and are forcedto develop unfamiliar skills, whichputs them in disadvantage.
From the latter view, the concern is expressed as an incapability for adults
and institutions to meet the knowledge, information and learning interests and
needs of the younger generations; as well as the ways, places, and moments they
approach them (Leadbetter; in Selwyn 2009, p.7).
However, in Selwyn’sperspective,the
digital nativespeechis more
ideological and based in common sense rather than resulting from an academic
debate in which ground research and theoretical analysis leadto deeper and
complex understandings of young people's uses of technology. This has to be
attempted in order to redefine the common sense perspectiveabout the new
generations and to inform adults and institutions' decisions and actions
towards them.This claim and the arguments involved within will be taken as
guide to present and analyze some facts and concerns in Latin American public education.
Digital natives born away from digital
technologies
The remarkmight seem
obvious but in order to be a digital
native it is necessary to have access to digital technologies and this is
not as wide spread as some authorswould suppose. Selwyn revisits empirical
researchescarried out in Europe and North America that show a strong
correlation between access to technology and socio-economics factors (social
class, home in-come, place of residence, gender and parents' educational level).
In Latin America, analysts have found what they call a brecha digital (digital divide) between poor and rich countries and
insidepopulation sectors within countries.
Taking Internet use
as indicator of digital technologies access, statistics suggest how wide the
international dive might be. Whilstin Iceland 90% of the population had access
to the World Wide Web during 2008, 88% in Sweden and 83% in Denmark, in Bangladesh
0.35%, in Central African Republic 0.44% and in Ethiopia only 0.45% had it. In
the same year there were also significant differences between the percentages
of Internet users in Latin American countries, for instance40% in Uruguay, 38%
in Brazil and Colombia, contrastingwith 3.3% in Nicaragua, 9.7% in Suriname and
10% in Haiti.[1]
In order to focus
young people's access to digital technologies in the region, Sunkel (2006; p.15)
uses data from CEPAL about homes with children and teenagers (6 to 19 years)
with computer and Internet access in 8 countries around 2008:
Source: CEPAL, about the base of special tabulations
of housing surveys in respective countries.
Regarding the
internaldigital divide,Sunkel points
out that the share of Internet penetration within homes in these eight
countries remains extremely unequal. Internet access is concentrated in
high-income sectors of urban areas, predominantly the metropolitan ones. In
order to illustrate this in Uruguay 55.5% of the population located within the
fifth income quintile have Internet access,while less than the 1% of those in
the first quintile have it. Concerning rural areas, in Brazil the Internet
penetration only reaches 0.5% in them. This last phenomenon is fairly
paradoxical considering that one of the advantages of communication
technologies like Internet thatthey allow participation in economic and social
activities despite geographic isolation (Sunkel 2006).
Approaching young people's real uses of
digital technologies
Selwin also criticises
the lack of information about young people’s real use of technologies in the digital native literature. Indeed, without
that kind of data,whatever is said about new generations and technologies, will
be no more than personal assumptions. So if we aim to understand Latin America’s
new generations we must take into consideration the studies that have been
carried out about how they use technologies in daily life.
A study done by
Global Infancia from Paraguay (2008) researches children and teenagers’ purposes
and the ways they use digital technologyin three age groups: 6-8, 8-12 and
12-17 years. Findings suggest that low and low middle-class children access to
the Internet via cyber-centres and it’s main used to communicate with parents and
relatives that live orwork abroad. Middle and high-class children and
teenagersmostly use Internet at home,and usually for recreational activities.
As for gender differences, boys use it more for online games, while girls do it
for social interaction. Significant dissimilarities in videogames played by
children and teenagers are not related with social class, where only vary in
equipment used, but with gender: girls prefer puzzles and sports simulators,
and boys like role and strategic games.
The national survey
about the cultural consumption of Argentinians from 11 to 17 years also brought
interesting data related to the use of digital technology (Piscitelli 2006).
Besides its confirmation of the correspondence between social and digital
divide, the survey shows that "chatting" is the most popular activity
for Argentinian children and teenagers that use computers (65%), followed by
playing videogames (55%). However, searching for information and doing homework
are not infrequent, 50% and 45% of the children and teenagers use the computer
to do both in that order;but the survey does not provide any information about
how meaningful these latter uses are in terms of learning.
Taking an older
population sector, Herrera-Batista (2009) describes the uses of digital
technologies among Mexican first year university students. He addresses de fact[2]
that Google and Wikipedia are their preferred Internet search resources for
general and specific information, 93% and 87% use them respectively. 85% have
never used an educative platform for academic activities; likewise 57% of the
population with a mobile phone with Internet access havenever used itfor that matter.
It is worth mentioning that 55% does not belong to any social network. One
ofthe main conclusions of this work is that although its high rates, the use of
digital technologies has not contributed to university students’ significant learning,
as it should be expected.
The studies
mentioned in this essay contribute to depict a more realistic picture of the
relationshipbetween young people and digital technologies. However even if this
is a limited review of the literature available, the information about the
topic in Latin America is still fragmented and incomplete. This is why additionalstudies
that bring systematic and comparable data on the subject of young people's use
of technologies inside and within the region countries must be done. Berríos
and Buxarrais (2005) mention issues that thesefurther studies should address:
·
Kinds and uses of digital technologies.
·
Differences in uses of digital technologies related to
culture, social class, place of residence, age and gender.
·
Social interactions with pairs and adults in the use
of digital technologies.
·
Family life communication supported by digital
technologies.
·
Digital technologies in educative environments.
·
Advantages, opportunities and risks of uses of digital
technologies.
Working with young people:
education and digital technologies
In the last section
of his article, Selwyn comments that adults and institutions still have and
important role to play in supporting young people’s engagement with digital
technologies. If this is necessary for western societies, then for Latin
American countries it is crucial. There is a lot to do in order to provide
equal access to digital technologies in the region and to promote the use of
them to enhance young people’s learning and participation. Perhaps a strongly
funded start is toretrieve the lessons from what has been done in pursuit of these
goals.
Since the beginning,
schools have been a key factorin Latin America’s policies regarding digital
technologies and young people. According to Jara (2008),Costa Rica was pioneer
in the region, introducing in 1998 computers and programming software (LOGO) to
encourage students' logical thinking and creativity.
The second experience camein
the early 90's,when Chile launched a school network based on the Internet (Red Enlaces) to support collaboration
around teaching resources. After 1995 Brazil (ProInfo) and Mexico (Red
Escolar) attempted to give transversal support to the curriculum with
computers and Internet. In 2000 Argentina created the first educative gateway
in the region (Educar), so many
countries followed this example that in 2004 a network was conformed (Relpe) to strengthen their gateways and
to share digital educative resources.
Coverage has been a constant goal,
however policies and results in the region are very dissimilar: while some
countries only have a web site with educative content and low rates of
qualified teachers in educative use of digital technologies, others are
involved in the conduction of 'second generation policies', like Mexico with Enciclomedia.[3]
Regarding the
digital technologiesincorporation model, Jara summarizes them into three
options: the computer lab, one computer inthe classroom, and one computer per student.
The first one is the most common; it consists in a room with one computer for
every 2 or 3 students,where teachers take their group (a few times perweek so
they can use software and the Internet to work on specific subjects. One criticism
to this model is that it privileges the ability to use digital technologies
over curriculum learning. The second option achieves a better integration of
these two aspects, that is because the computer is in the classroom, and can be
used for all subjects at any time; some countries have even introduced digital
blackboards inpast years. A considerable disadvantage of thisalternative is
that mostly teachers, leaving students with few opportunities to manipulate it,
use the computer. The third model is in experimental stage, but as new portable
devices like netbooks and multimedia mobile phones are getting popular because
their prices are decreasing, it is possible that each student will have a
computer to work with in the classroom.
Knowledge extracted
from these experiences might enlighten further policies to promote the use of digital
technologies within young people:
·
Public policies designed to use educative systems to
guarantee equal access to digital technologies are required. (Sunkel 2006).
·
Support of the school board and the educative system
authorities is essential to the use of digital technologies in education, for
instance continuous financial resources are necessary to maintain equipment
(Jara 2008).
·
Most teachers need motivation, training and accompanimentto
use digital technologies as teaching tools (Jara 2008).
·
Digital technologies are used in classroomswith
traditional teaching ways, it is exceptional when theyare used to configure new
learning environments (Coll et al 2008).
·
Digital technologies cannot reduce inequity by themselves;
an appropriate pedagogic approach must guide their use in education (Tedesco
2005).
·
Teachers make the difference because the impact of
digital technologies in student learning depends on how these toolsare used
(Jara 2008).
Conclusion
The digital native portrait seems to be too
far away from reality after a shallow review of the type of research studies
and aspects that Selwin suggests taking into account in order to understand
young people’s engagements with digital technologies. Access to digital
technologies is unequal between rich and poor countries and within inside
population sectors in countries; and despite of the limited information
available, the real uses of them are much more diverse than the images of
children and teenagers enhanced or disempowered by those technologies. Finally,
as it was outlined above, there is still a lot to do in order to take advantage
of digital technologies in young people's education.
Perhaps the first
step to take in Latin America is to avoid taking for granted that the use of
digital technologies plays (or should play) a crucial role in young people's
life and education, and startthinking thoroughly why it is so necessary to work
on this use. Stating that digital technologies have become an essential tool
for a wide range of human activities, and those who do not know how to use them
are at risk to be excluded from modern (or knowledge) society is not enough;
this is just a reactive thinking. We must be creative to imagine the future
that is worth building and the persons
we aim to bring up, then we will be able to define the right contribution of
digital technologies (as of any other tool) to education.
Considering the
experiences in the educative use of digital technologies it is evident that
there are technical and practical educative issues that we still have to figure
out. The pedagogic approach is fundamental to assist young people in a more
meaningful and truly empowering usage of digital technologies. They must be
introduced to education in ways closer to real life situations: as resources to
achieve different goals. Besides the instructional support in the manipulation
of the digital technologies and in the search, analysis, comprehension,
production and utilization of information, teachers and educative institutions shouldhelp young people to discern
which of their objectives lead to genuine benefits for them and for the others.
References
Coll, C., Mauri, T.
y Onrubia, J. (2008). 'Análisis de los usos reales de las tic en contextos
educativos formales: una aproximación sociocultural.'Revista Electrónica de Investigación Educativa, Vol.10, No. 1.
[http://redie.uabc.mx/vol10no1/contenido-coll2.html]
Global Infancia
(2008). 'Consulta a niños, niñas y
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with the support of Secretaría la Secretaría Nacional de la Niñez y la
Adolescencia de la República del Paraguay and the funding of Save the Children
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[http://old.apc.org/espanol/rights/TICs_informe_de_investigacion_2008_final_.pdf]
Herrera-Batista,
M. (2009). 'Disponibilidad, uso y apropiación de lastecnologías por estudiantes
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(TIC) en la educación en América Latina. Una exploración de indicadores.' Serie Políticas Sociales. No. 126, Comisión
Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
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digital native - myth and reality’ Aslib
Proceedings, 61, 4.
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/9775892/Digital-Native]
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educativa en América Latina”. Presentedin the Tercer Seminario Las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación y los
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toApril 1st 2005, Santiago de Chile.Seminario CEDI/OCDE de Habla Hispana.
[1] Source: International Telecommunication Union,
World Telecommunication Development Report and database, and World Bank
estimates. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2
[2] Herrera Batista also says that 70% of the
students access Internet at home and 83% have a multimedia mobile phone, which
remind that mostly the middle and high-class individuals entry to university.
[3] A program that
introduces software linked to the curriculum, one computer and a digital
blackboard to the classroom.
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