Abstract
Current discussions about educational policy and practice are often embedded in a mind-set that considers
students who were born in an age of omnipresent digital media to be fundamentally different
from previous generations of students. These students have been labelled digital natives and have been
ascribed the ability to cognitively process multiple sources of information simultaneously (i.e., they can
multitask). As a result of this thinking, they are seen by teachers, educational administrators, politicians/
policy makers, and the media to require an educational approach radically different from that of previous
generations. This article presents scientific evidence showing that there is no such thing as a digital
native who is information-skilled simply because (s)he has never known a world that was not digital. It
then proceeds to present evidence that one of the alleged abilities of students in this generation, the
ability to multitask, does not exist and that designing education that assumes the presence of this ability
hinders rather than helps learning. The article concludes by elaborating on possible implications of this
for education/educational policy.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 135-142 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Teaching and Teacher Education |
Volume | 67 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- Digital native
- Multitasking
- Homo zappiens
- Educational reform