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Far too many of us have bought into the new chestnut of “digital natives vs. digital immigrants” as educators and administrators.   It does follow well with our habit of searching out a label for each face in a classroom; making them something we can count, measure, graph, and put on a PowerPoint slide. Unfortunately this sets up some drastic misunderstandings of the individuals within these groups.   I challenge you as educators and administrators to look deeper, gazing into the infinite variety that exists between 0 and 1 on this person-based number line.

To assume the members of a particular generation group posess an innate level of understanding because they are part of that group is stereotyping.  We would be shocked and incensed to hear the statement, “Oh, they don’t get technology because they’re old.”  How is this any different than, “This should be easy for them, they’re kids after all and you know kids and computers.”  It’s a fallacy that must be corrected or at a minimum recognized.

Students come from all backgrounds and levels of understanding.  We recognize this when it comes to core curriculum, classroom composition, even school lunch programs so why do we seem to have a blind spot to this when it comes to technology.  Is it fair to assume a student will pick up Spanish easily because they can speak English?  Of course it isn’t.  So why is it fair to assume a student will pick up blogging, video, online collaboration, and multimedia just because they use Facebook?

The only thing separating this generation from generations past is they lack the fear of unfamiliarity for the most part.  Their aptitudes are the same, they have similar strengths and weaknesses, and experience the same joys and frustrations as we and our parents did.  We must recognize this when working with them as teachers and planning for them as administrators.

There are no digital natives.  There are no digital immigrants.  There are students in all their infinite, wonderful variety.  Peel off the labels and discover what lies within.  Recognize they will all learn at their own pace, in their own way, the things that are important to them.  No zeroes, no ones, only students.