After taking the online quiz regarding my digital literacy, I find that I am more so in between a digital immigrant and native. I feel that by no means am I an immigrant because I have grown accustomed to modern day technology throughout the years. This is definately most recognizable when I try to teach my mom how to text message! I was able to identify all the words on the quiz except for 'modding' and 'smart mobs' which i had both never heard before and had no idea what they were. In general, I do feel competent regarding my digital abilities of comfort level, however, in taking both this quiz and relating my digital abilities to classmates, I would by no means classify myself as a digital native. I may be competent in technology but I do not feel that I grew up on computers and video games and MTV. Such items were regulated in my household, and much of my childhood was spent with friends using our imagination! It was not until college that I was introduced to both wikis and blogs, and these are both things I do not feel one hundred percent confident in.
I believe that my digital literacy development can be very comparable to some of the issues Tompkins raises in emergent literacy. I do not feel that I would be classified as an emergent digital learner, yet I can see some similarities to when I was. An underlying factor that Tompkins relates emergent literacy learners development to is both practice availabilty of materials to develop reading and writing. I suppose that this is much like how my digital development began. We did not have a computer in our house until I was in middle school, that is when I remember learning to use instant messenger. The availabilty of technology in my house as well as my friends, allowed for more use of materials (computer/IM) to develop my digital literacy. Currently, I would not classify my digital literacy as fluent completely. While I can efficently use the internet, email, messaging, and blogging, I feel I still lack a broader understanding of the cyber-world as a whole.
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After reading your post, I have to say that I feel very similar to you. I had access to technology growing up in both school and at home, but yet I do not feel completely competent with technology. After the work we did in class today I almost have to question what exactly it takes to be a digital native. We talked a bit about the different kinds of literacy, and this made me think harder about if I am even beginning to make my transition to digital native. Tonight, I looked through the wikis and links for both our class as well as the ones posted by the itec group. I had such a hard time finding the information I was interested in and I somewhat blame this on my lack of search skills. I often am overwhelmed with all the information on the internet. With all the different types of technology we explored today, I am also finding that I am not nearly as competent with technology in general as I had previously thought. Seeing all the different types helped me realize how much more I have to go. I may be equivalent to the emergent reading/writing literacy stage with my technology literacy, but I do feel that the more we are exposed to these new tools, as well as the different types of literacy, we will successfully reach the fluent level. I think the new literacies exploration project will be a big step in this direction.
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