It’s about Diversity, Stupid

Delving into the Prensky article regarding digital immigrants vs digital natives, I can't get past a quote in the opening paragraph:
Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.
Even beyond the concept of comparing learners in a designer's target population based on their entry into Web 2.0, how learners approach life from their variable cultural contexts and dimensions of diversity must inform how technology works in design. What is the point of designing learning within a social media or relflexive content if there are significant barriers to learners accessing the platform? The digital divide is real and separates learners still based on racial and economic terms worldwide. In the corporate context, while companies have an obligation to stratify the equipment and platform access, the time and investment to allows learners access can also vary on the same lines. It's about diversity! Does design get people in, protect them on the platforms where they learn, and make learning successful? Better yet, does being a digital immigrant using a Web 2.0-based tool mean that the learn must both twist into unfamiliar technology and show up in a different cultural context? I hope not. I hope the democratiztion of Web 2.0 - especially social media-based learning - means designers go boldly to create spaces for learners to be fully authentic. In my personal blog in 2018, I commented on cultural appropriation and how communities create their own borders and rules for engagement. Designers should take note: do not ignore how people identify and move through that identity as they enter social spaces. Yes, allowing people to share pronouns and national flags and pronounciations of their names help. Are we keeping them safe through common-sense and proactive moderation of learning spaces? Are we allowing learners to tell their own stories about how those identities help them learn? Or their fears about learning in the new way. We cannot ignore the digital native/immigrant conversation. Yet, it may be behind a wall of more prescient conversations of who's in the learning environment and who's out.

Comments

  1. Cohl MillerMay 25, 2022 at 5:02 PM

    That quote really struck home with me as well. I think identity and feeling supported plays such a huge role in a person being able to learn. We talk a lot about basic needs needing to be met (food, shelter, etc), but not much credo is given to the basic need of being seen and supported. I really hope that changing trends will allow web 2.0 to be the space that is so badly needed.

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