The digital melting pot: Bridging the digital native-immigrant divide

Authors

  • Sharon Stoerger

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v14i7.2474

Keywords:

digital natives, technology, 21st century skills, education

Abstract

Educational technology advocates claim today’s students are technologically savvy content creators and consumers whose mindset differs from previous generations. The digital native-digital immigrant metaphor has been used to make a distinction between those with technology skills and those without. Metaphors such as this one are useful when having initial conversations about an emerging phenomenon, but over time, they become inaccurate and dangerous. Thus, this paper proposes a new metaphor, the digital melting pot, which supports the idea of integrating rather than segregating the natives and the immigrants.

Author Biography

Sharon Stoerger

Sharon Stoerger is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her current areas of research include computer-mediated communication and communities of practice in virtual world-based learning environments.

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Published

2009-07-04

How to Cite

Stoerger, S. (2009). The digital melting pot: Bridging the digital native-immigrant divide. First Monday, 14(7). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v14i7.2474