Challenging Mobile Perceptions

A girl has recently been told that she may face a prison sentence for her part in using a mobile phone to video a horrific murder in the UK. The press has related this to incidents of 'happy slapping', where essentially common assaults are filmed with mobile phone, usually by teenagers and then shared with others.

For some this will no doubt add fuel to fire for the argument about how socially destructive mobile phones can be. However, for me this demonstrates the desperate need we have to continue to move towards accepting mobile devices in our classrooms and lecture theatres as part of our daily lives, because we need to create future generations who learn to use these tools in a socially acceptable fashion. 'Happy slapping' is the extreme demonstrative point of a group people who have no solid understanding of how the technology they use to enhance their daily life can be so socially destructive.

I have blogged before on how and why I disagree with Marc Prensky's 'Digital Native and Immigrant' definitions. I believe firmly that we are all journey men and women and we adopt technology at different points in our lives for different reasons but most usually because we believe it to be useful. My usual example is the digital programming of washing machines. Many parents will not struggle with this because the technology is useful and probably even considered essential. Yet the same parents may struggle with simple tasks on a mobile phone because it is not seen as essential. Conversely their children will have no problems with mobile phones because it is essential to maintaining their social life but will struggle with a washing machine because it is not something they need to deal with. Yet both require digital skills to use successfully. This generalisation (and I fully accept there will be exceptions on both sides :) illustrates why for me the Digital Natives concept does not work because life is more complicated that it allows for.

However, 'Digital Natives' is a potent image and is widely used and one result I feel is that mobile devices are sometimes seen as almost otherworldly by older generations. This is not true it's just that their useful has not been accepted. The result is these tools remain locked away and outside of classes. The result is not only is their power being kept out of the educational experience but the younger learners are not getting the experience of how to use these devices in socially acceptable way.