How “Digital Natives” educate next generation “Digital Natives”

I came across an interesting story recently which is about an innovative use of iPhone to perform scientific experiment. (“Father and a son performed home science experiment and an iPhone goes into space” http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blogs/geekingout/archive/2010/10/18/father-and-son-perform-home-science-experiment-and-an-iphone-goes-into-space.aspx)

The father and his son wanted to see what it looks like in the space, so they used a fast food container to build up a craft, tied a HD camera up on the end of a weather balloon to find out. The digital technology devices they used are not only a camera that took picture from outer space, but also an iPhone which allowed them to follow the GPS signal of the craft and find it when it landed.

When a kid wants to know what the outer space looks like, they might go online to have a Google image search (if they have Internet access and basic search technique) or they may just find a relevant book to read through. But nothing can be more excited and impressive to find it out by yourself, taking pictures of space with your own camera, it means a lot to a child and definitely a better way to learn basic astronomy than just listening to your geography teacher in a regular class.  

What might be an implication of this case is not only that technology is playing a more and more impressive role in education, but also parents can be their children’s best teachers. Prensky (2001) pointed out that generation born between 1980 and 1994 are “digital natives” who are familiar with and reliance on ICT. These 20 or 30 some are most having children now and I believe their ways of educating their children would be quite different from last generation who we called as “digital immigrants”. Just like the father in this story (who I believe is a “digital native”) has this kind of mindset to use digital technology to teach his son, it might at first for a fun for doing that; but eventually, with this kind of activities enabled by ICT, children would be influenced and get used to using ICT to enhance their learning process.

Another thing that is worth to point out is the “Mathew Effect” (Merton, 1968), if a person already in possession of good culture capital, they will be easier to benefit from technology use. The father in this story had created a good culture environment for the family to be innovative and to use ICT effectively for education purpose.

Of course, this is also a help from i-series product which enable the whole activity. Clearly i-series products are trying out their market in education and there are tons of Apple applications out there for education purpose, but what’s more important is how you can use them effectively and innovatively and in what way they can be used differently to provide more valuable educational results.