Digital Natives

Bennett and Maton suggest, within their article "Beyond the ‘digital natives’ debate", that typical methods of conceptualising the role of technology within education is mistaken. They posit that a new way of conceptualising the debate can be developed from a more skeptical position, where educational researchers approach technology with a more objective outlook. Such that technological and educational innovations are evaluated on their merits and not preemptively incorporated into the curriculum before we are more informed regarding the efficacy of new methods in relation to more established pedagogical methodologies. Bennett and Maton highlight the “sense of urgency” which often surrounds this debate, they sagely suggest that educational researchers approach the topic with an “agnostic” position, thus avoiding being caught up within technology worship that is very real and potentially dangerous aspect of our society which underscores debate about education within developed nations. This kind of outlook prevents people taking advantage of “the urgency”, a phenomenon that we can already see occurring within Australia where self appointed technological-education gurus are touting Ipads and mobile devices as the most important development to the syllabus in the last 50 years.