Not everyone agrees with the language and underlying assumptions of the digital native. There is an over whelming tendency to equate technology with intelligence.
It suggests fluidity with technology that not all children and young adults have, and a corresponding awkwardness with technology that not all older adults have. As a teacher who works with computer education everyday I see first hand the number of students that can text message but can not write a decent paragraph in standard English. Not all my students know what or how to blog or use a message board. Not all children Twitter. Crucially, there is debate over whether there is any adequate evidence for claims made about digital natives and their implications for education. Bennett, Maton & Kervin (2008), for example, critically review the research evidence and describe some accounts of digital natives as an academic form of a moral panic. Of course, nobody is "born digital" (unless we are now Borg- Trekkie's will understand); as with any cultural technology, such as reading and writing, it is matter of access to education.
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