a) The oldest digital native you know.
I have struggled to think of anyone I would consider “old” who would fall into Marc Prenksy’s definition of a digital native. The only example I can think of is someone who I worked with, Mark, who worked in the I.T. department of an office I was working in over the Summer.
Mark is 26 and would always be on facebook. His primary means of communication was online, through e-mails, facebook or MSN. However, as Mark worked in the I.T. department and his skills lied within computers and other uses of modern technology, I think this would be expected as he has be taught and encouraged, both by himself and in his line of work, to keep up to date with technology and therefore it would be logical for him to use it to the best of his ability.
In this way, surely his ‘digital nativeness’ would have developed along the same lines as a “real” digital natives would be (those who were born after 1980) in that he has learnt his skills through having a need to use them fairly frequently, he would not be able to do his job efficiently if he were not au fait with this technologies.
I definitely think Prensky's definition wasn;t very allowing. I can think of people older than the definition who I believe to have lost their 'accent' by having spent a lot of time using technology. Just like i know some real immigrants who have spent so long in the country they no longer have an accent!
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