Reading for Digital Natives

I recently went to the Library Technology Conference and attended some very interesting sessions. This post will be the first in a series about some of the sessions I found most interesting.

Reading for Digital Natives, presented by Carol Soma, was one of the best sessions I went to. The slides at the previous link are a pretty good outline for the session. I didn't realize how much different the brain of a digital native is from someone like me who is considered to be a digital immigrant. I never really thought of myself as a digital immigrant. I started messing with computers when I was 8 years old, and have tended to be an early adopter of technology, but my son has had his own computer since he was three. My first computer was text only, his can play high-res movies. When I started using the internet, it was text based and you used gopher to retrieve documents from servers and downloaded at 2400 bits per second. His internet is full of pictures, video games, movies, and the text isn't green on a black background. He downloads all that at around 1.6 million bits per second. When I look at all that, I have to admit there is a big enough difference between his experience and mine that I am definitely a digital immigrant, he is a digital native, and none of the following should surprise me.

• The visual cortex in brains today are 20% larger than brains measured 20 years ago.

• If you show a digital native and a digital immigrant 100 pictures, the native will recall 90 of them, the immigrant only 60.

• Digital natives don't notice black and white text. They are attracted to burnt orange, neon green, and red. Textbooks have taken notice and are starting to reflect this.

Slides 7 and 8 show how we scan a page for information versus how the digital native scans a page. For us it takes 7 eye movements and is basically left to right. The digital native does it in 4 eye movement that basically scan the title and make an X on the page. They are scanning to see if anything jumps right out at them.

Digital natives are good at visual skills, mind mapping is a good tool for them. They like to learn things through experience rather than through lectures. It needs to be interactive. They expect things to happen at light speed and be easy, fast, and fun. They don't really "get" revising and rewriting. They are so used to multitasking, that they don't necessarily realize when they need to focus to do a better job. Also because of their multitasking nature, things tend to end up in the habitual learning center rather than in the application/analysis part of the brain. So they can memorize facts, but can't necessarily apply them to other situations.

Some things to keep in mind when dealing with reading difficulties. Intensive reading instruction after age 10 can create lasting changes in the brain. Our current education system tends to put the bulk of its focus on reading K-3, but reading really needs to have a K-12 focus not just K-3. We need to teach reading at all levels and in all areas. We need to have them read aloud and think aloud. Have them predict what will happen in what they are reading. Show them how multitasking actually slows them down. Have them show their work to an audience. Don't rely heavily on PowerPoint, kids use PPT because that is what their teachers want, but it's not a technology they would choose for themselves. Use tools that are familiar to them. Gaming will be more engaging for them. Moodle is good for organizing classroom material online.

Those are some of the highlights of the session. I would encourage anyone who is interested in more information to download the slides. There is a great bibliography at the end. I would pay special attention to the documents by Mark Prensky.