While looking at other peers blogs and researching online about this chosen week’s topic of visitor and residents (V&R) and digital awareness, I have realized that one peer and I agree that this weeks topic creates a better awareness of personal online privacy and safety and one other peer from class and one student post I found online, agree on one point; That Prensky was ageist, ableist, possibly racist, and just one real cranky white guy. All jokes aside, the point I am trying to make is that the Visitor and Resident method has a more inclusive intention behind it than Prensky’s “Digital Natives and Immigrants” when he implies that digital immigrants or the older generations are handicapped and dumb regarding modern technology and that the digital natives should know and be interested in it. “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” (White, D. S., & Cornu, A. L. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. Para 9). I have also found a page from the same source as the weekly reading that has a great point about the digital world that I did not even think to consider. It is a wow inside of a wow.
Now obviously I had to bring up the fact that as I was reading, it was not entirely all that positive. Although the reason behind the article is to critique Prensky and discuss a more neutral theory, I could not help but feel singled out negatively as an Indigenous person. It was quite uncomfortable reading “digital natives” and “Native speakers” when referring to modern and colonial technologies. Situations like this are what slightly bother me still, where we reference dated and more derogatory references that make specific groups of people feel uncomfortable, blamed, or singled out for no reason. I would like to reiterate from my wow and wonder post, “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”.
I also enjoy seeing that there are two others who agree with me on the point of, not all younger people are interested or favor digital technology. Rachelle, from Royal Roads University, provides a personal example that proves this. Her son is not “computer literate” and is not interested in contributing to personal or professional online platforms, as he is in trades and he buys physical copies of books and studies from them. “He believes in face-to-face relationships, where he is found delivering public speaking engagements” (2018. Para 2). I also personally prefer face-to-face but life does not always allow that…for obvious reasons. Kayla from class provides a great question to think about regarding this point, “it is shared that educators cannot presume that all young students are “digital natives” who understand how to use technology to support and enhance their learning” (White & Cornu, 2011). I wonder how many educators do have the preconceived idea that all young students are “digital natives”?” (Krug, Kayla. 2022. Para. 3). I am also curious about this question as well. I would love to see the stats of a survey or some other assessment. Additionally, if there are some who believe this, How or why do they believe this?
In relation to this, my pod mate Miah and I both reflect that we are more aware now about how we use our social media and other platforms in our maps. Since I have already experienced the V&R exercise in a previous course, I am able to think more about it personally and about specific platforms I use. For example, I had no idea about all of the Google privacy options you had shown in class. That was a new thing that I am aware of. I think it is always important to be aware and think about your privacy settings in the digital platforms you use just for general online safety.
Lastly (I am sorry this is longer than 500 words), Something new that I am considering now from our required reading is, because modern technology is so vast online, it is its own world so to speak. There is a whole new language. There seem to be more approaches to digital literacies in the past few years. Lankshear and Knowbel in the reading focus on transitioning from the singular ‘literacy’ to plural context ‘literacies’ because of the sheer diversity of specific platforms and software that exist online (White & Cornu. Para 14). This point is so common because of how diverse our physical world is, why wouldn’t the digital world not have different kinds of languages? I thought this was a cool thing to think about because it is so simple and common in our world yet most average people do not even think to consider this remotely.
References:
Rachelle. 2018. “The Role That Technology Plays In My Life: The Visitors and Residents Typology Map”. Royal Roads University. Malat WebSpace.
White, D. S., & Cornu, A. L. (2011). “Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement“. First Monday.
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