This whole article just validates the point that the digital world does not focus on equality, equity, and freedom for all. The WOW is just the utter shock and uncomfortability of this reading and the colonized mindset of Prensky is just bad. Although there are academics in this reading that opposed and made things right, I wonder about how many articles in other departments in other schools still assign colonial and white supremacy authors as the required material? As someone who is mixed, K’omoks and settler I feel uncomfortable and singled out by the terms Prensky used to “define” the “only two types of user” of the digital space. Not to mention how ageist his beliefs are.
“Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet” (White, D. S., & Cornu, A. L. 2011. Para 7.)
“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” (Para 9).
I totally understand this article, the different perspectives, and updated discussions about this specific issue, but I still cannot help the fact that as an Indigenous person, who in this country is still seen as “lower” than the immigrant’s PM Trudeau has been allowing in, I feel singled out, uncomfortable and still seen as the lowest of the low. With all due respect, this kind of material should not be in classes anymore unless it is to discuss the issue of race, culture, and identity especially when they refer to “natives” and “Immigrants”.
This is a discussion topic more for gender and Indigenous studies where we can break apart and dissect it to explain why these articles can still be an issue even when they do argue the fact that it is racist, ageist, and colonial.
“His Natives and Immigrants were hypothetical children of their time, however, and we believe that as our understanding has developed, it is appropriate to re-evaluate what was previously accepted and to change it to suit the purposes of today” (para 5)
This quote just points out all of what I have discussed, we do need to re-evaluate even the modern articles and discuss them with intentions of improving, re-righting, and including all peoples.