21st Century Digital Boy

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“I’m a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don’t know how to live, but I’ve got a lot of toys” – Brett Gurewitz

The above song lyrics were written circa 1988, but some might say they seem even more phrophetic now. You would be forgiven for thinking that the words were written by a Luddite, but in actuality they were written by a punk rock guitarist/record label head and sung by a vocalist who has Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and teaches life sciences at UCLA.

Many learners today are digital boys and girls, and they have a lot of “toys” – cell phones/Blackberrys, laptops, desktops, Wiis/Playstations/X-Boxes, iPhones, iPods, televisions, and dvd players, not to mention accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Hotmail, gmail, instant messaging and chat sites, and so on. Prensky calls those students who have grown up with digital technology Digital Natives. Prensky goes on to relate a number of issues arising from Digital Natives’ perspectives:

“Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. (Does any of this sound familiar?)”

Yes, it does sound familiar, and the first points he mentions are important to consider. The last two are problematic for me, though. It’s good to recognize that digital natives “thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards”, but it’s also unrealistic to hope that as educators we can offer those things on a daily basis. I’m not sure anyone gets instant gratification all the time, I know I don’t. Do you? And the point about liking games more than serious work – is this something new? Doesn’t everyone?

Prensky continues to inform that his “own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.” That is an interesting idea, and one which he seems very confident about – he explains that he can create a game to learn just about anything. But, like instant gratification, I cannot offer that option to my students. I can certainly work towards engaging them in ways that games do, but I can’t develop games in order for my students to hit all of the outcomes in my curriculum. In fact, I don’t want to, either; I don’t think playing games is the only way to develop lifelong learners, and I’m not sure that learning through games will help most students learn about “how to live”, to go back to the quote from Gurewitz. It's not that I don't appreciate positive elements found in gaming (please see my last post about that), I just don't see educators making everything into a game.

At any rate, Prensky has certainly given educators a lot to consider as far as pondering the needs of digital natives. The risk of not properly utilizing technology in schools is that we may widen the chasm between tech use in private time and educational non-tech time. If students are developing skills and interests that educators ignore, it’s possible that some learners won’t “know how to live” – or won’t know how to use some of those skills for purposes other than entertainment or personal/social reasons. Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan argue here that their brain research shows that "new technology can have both positive and negative effects on our brains. Digital natives tend to have greater multi-tasking skills, improved peripheral vision and higher efficiency using technology. However, Digital Immigrants appear to have more advanced people skills - better face to face contact, more ability to solve problems, work in groups, and express empathy". Maybe we need to recognize and remember the positive elements that digital immigrants are bringing to the equation.

Small and Vorgan also have suggested that multitasking may not be such a positive development either.
In their article entitled Is Multitasking Really More Efficient?, the authors suggest that “though multitasking often makes us feel like we are getting more done when we divide our attention, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between – a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It’s not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another – it takes a few moments.”

The authors also cite neuroscientists and psychologists while stating that "the bottom line is that the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task than when multitasking, despite most people’s perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask." The authors do go on to say that listening to music (if it is music you enjoy) can be helpful to thought processes.

Educators should recognize that digital learners are used to multitasking without expecting that all students will perform better doing more than one thing at a time. Perhaps there are times when listening to music unobtrusively works in the classroom or the library, but there are still times when teacher need to help students to focus on one task. If we all help drive students further towards always doing two or three things at once, I think we would be a doing a number of them a grave disservice. I would say the same about students’ preference for playing games, not to mention all of the other “toys” learners access today: what can educators do to appeal to those who are used to fast-paced environments, quick decision-making and problem-solving opportunities, collaborating with others, learning at individual rates, and so on? First, recognize that we may not be able to change students’ proclivities in these areas (as Prensky suggests). Second, I would hope that educators are already planning with these developments in mind, as well as looking toward what technology can assist these learners.For those of us who can’t create games to teach everything, one good checklist for engaging digital learners can be found at The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers.

Furthermore, on an individual and personal level, what games, applications and tools can we easily become a little more familiar with? For example, how many of us have watched or played the most popular games? Don’t many of us make time to read novels that popular with our students? If we really value games as important to our learners and recognize that there may be positive elements in many of these games, shouldn’t we learn a little bit about them? Who’s up for some research?

A Manifesto and What Comes Next

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Pictured above: a different kind of manifesto altogether (NEITHER one is Joyce Valenza!)


Well, ladies and gents, the first post for the new year sees us diving into some deep waters. It’s time to look at - wait for it – a MANIFESTO! No, not the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf, but Joyce Valenza’s Manifesto for the 21st Century Librarian. I haven’t even read Marx and Engel’s manifesto, and that was made more than a century and a half ago! Well comrades, Marx was certainly a leading thinker, and Valenza appears to be one as well. My first response was Holy Cats! What a comprehensive and overwhelming piece of writing! My second response was that the level of educational leadership presumed/proposed by Valenza was a great motivator, akin to Robin Williams as Prof. Keating in Dead Poets Society telling his students to make their lives “extraordinary” and “seize the day!” Like Marx inspiring a revolution, Valenza’s manifesto sounds like/reads like a rallying point. Even her introduction to one version of the manifesto sounds like a call to arms:

“Teacher-librarians cannot expect to assume a leadership role in information technology and instruction, and we cannot claim any credibility with
students, faculty, or administrators, if we do not recognize and
thoughtfully exploit the paradigm shift of the past two years.” (Valenza, preamble to Manifesto 2006 - http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200610TagTeamTech.pdf)

I confess that the assumption of leadership in schools was not a given in my mind. However, if teacher-librarians can embody all of the elements listed in the manifesto, it’s clear that is exactly what they should be doing. Another version of the manifesto is available online in wiki form, and you can find it here. This manifesto is one that I think should be made widely available and promoted, because I’m not sure that most people realize where teacher-librarians are now, are going to be and where they want to be. At the same time, we’ve got to be prepared for a critical backlash; check out this vitriolic rant against another librarian manifesto.


My third response to the manifesto is, “My gosh, I’ve got a lot to learn!” At this juncture I am a classroom teacher and not a librarian, so there are a number of ideas that don’t currently apply to my position. But overall, the “paradigm shift” Valenza mentions is one that all educators need to know. In the end, it is as simple (or complicated) as recognizing that what Thomas Frey identifies as “rapidly changing technologies and equally fast-changing mindset of library patrons” (http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120) are equally important to all learners and educators. In Darren Wershler-Henry and Mark Surman’s Commonspace: Beyond Virtual Community, the authors suggest that these changes demand new ways of thinking:

“The Internet is a much more complex beast than it was even a couple of years ago. Its increasing intricacy demands more sophisticated models than the received ideas about virtual community. Without some new theories, we’re like the proverbial blind men disagreeing about what each is experiencing” (Wershler-Henry and Surman, 2001). They go on to “attempt to take a step backwards and get a look at the larger picture (without stepping in a big heap of elephant [doodie]”. I believe that in some ways that getting a new perspective to look at the bigger panoramic view is what can be accomplished from our reflection on Valenza’s manifesto. And who wants to step in elephant excrement, anyway?

Aside from the manifestos, other readings for this post were taken from School Libraries Worldwide Volume 14, Number 2. One that caught my attention right away because of its relevance to a definite paradigm shift was Videogames in the Library? What is the World Coming To?

As opposed to a quiet game of chess, library users may soon find themselves immersed in online games. Author Kathy Sandford has identified a number of positive aspects of online gaming, and here are a few that hit home from my personal experience:

“Players are required to constantly make decisions, problem-solve, and respond to the computer; what they do makes a difference to he outcome of the game. They are motivated to practice, develop skills, and seek out alternative ways to complete a game. In order to successfully complete a game, players must have a broad, overall understanding of the goals as well as a grasp of specific knowledge and skills”.

I’ve been watching my kids at home and I am somewhat amazed to admit that Sandford is right. A big challenge is ahead if we are to embrace widely diverse games as part of learning experiences, as well as ensuring our physical spaces are conducive to learning through gaming.

On the other hand, in Keith McPherson’s article Shaping Global Criticality with School Libraries the author references a Canadian study done by the Media Awareness Network which tells us that 75% of the 9-17 year-old respondents were not aware of advertising incorporated into the online product-centred games they were playing. This is one example which McPherson points towards while arguing that “school librarians must heighten their leadership role in teaching students the multiliteracy and critically literacy skills necessary to participate effectively in today's multilinguistic, multicultural and multimodal communication environments, and to avoid falling victim to the risks associated with unvetted information.” We’ve almost come full circle back to the idea of librarians or teacher-librarians taking leadership roles, which is, for me, perhaps my most recent revelation. McPherson’s entire article is entirely thought-provoking and logical, and he even includes lesson plans (which I have not had time to digest yet). Yet I kept finding my thoughts return to the leadership issue – it is clear that many have come to the conclusion that it is not enough to make resources, technology, experience, and so on available – teacher-librarians need to do much more to keep moving forward.