Entry 14 IDT1415 Prensky's H. Sapiens Digital and Digtal Wisdom

Prensky's Homo Sapiens Digital article offers a fresher and less politically implicated stance as one of the key concepts is that digital wisdom trascends the distinction between digital natives and immigrants which I personally found isolating, reclusive and stigmatising. Personal experience allows me to agree with his idea of how digital technology has enhanced memory both personal and collective as I can now have access to what other teaching professionals are doing in the world and learn from them and vice versa. The very fact that we are enrolled on this course is striking evidence of the wonders of digital technology. Prensky states that D-Tech will not replace human minds but that it does enhances them via these tools, as if they were extensions of our minds and body. We are now able to do things impossible before with the added value that if digitally wise we will be able to access cognitive powers otherwise dormant. He says that there is wisdom from technological use which provides us with the understanding of how to access these cognitive powers and wisdom in 'prudent' use which in turn 'enhance our capabilities' to make decisions. In other words, the way I understand it is that my use of a clicker tool such as Geddit has resulted in a better, let's say more confident', understanding of how the tool works (wisdom from use), and this has affected or enhanced my capability (wisdom in prudent use) to make decisions as to how to and when to intervene to help my learners.

As Ed-tech is permeating the environment and becoming a permanent fixture in contexts where this is possible (this obviously opens the door to a political discussion on whether this applies to only some countries as alluded to by Shah in Oliver's CNN interview of Prensky) then accepting these enhancements is a must as they become 'integral parts' of our lives. Once this divide is fully buried under the progressive development of our digital wisdom then it will be easier to make it also part of the curriculum as Prensky suggests. Digital literacies are already being address to one extent or another, so why not digital wisdom? I believe it is because digital literacies are seen as the first step or the equivalent of English 101 and Digital Wisdom a final year subject rather than concepts which can develop simultaneously as 'social practices' (Dudeney et al.2013).

References

Dudeney, G., Hockly, N. and Pegrum, M. 2013. Digital Literacies. Research and Resources in Language Teaching. Harlow, Pearson Education.

Joy, Oliver. 2012. What does it mean to be a digital native? [online] CNN Edition: International. 8 Dec 2012. Last accessed 13 Oct 2014 at: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/

Prensky, M. 2009. H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom. Innovate. Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=1017631 [accessed: October 13, 2014]