Our school is just about to provide Netbook computers (Lenovo S10s in case you're interested) to all of our Year 6 students. This is part of a project to provide an immersive technology-rich year at an age where we think it will do the most good. Lots of Web 2.0 and open Source software tools, use of Open Office and Google Docs as their main productivity environments, access to school hosted blogs and wikis, etc. We are trying to make use of these tools to promote creativity, productivity and higher order thinking. We want to expose them to the many great digital resources out there, while teaching them the information literacy skills needed to navigate through the massive amounts of information available. The kids and their teachers are SO excited and, to be honest, so am I.
So when I stumbled across this video this morning I really had a giggle. The students who made this clip did a great job of pointing out the limitations of non-digital media in a very funny way. It's so true, and although I don't really agree with the whole "digital natives" idea in terms of their deeper understanding of technology, I certainly agree that our kids do just expect things to work in a certain way. And they are right... Why shouldn't a picture be clickable? Or a word be linkable? Or a page be zoomable? And what exactly is the point of text if it's not hypertext?
