At PICNIC08 I took a turn off the beaten conference track and paid a visit to the Picnic Young Labs, a series of workshops for teen students, whose teachers have been visionary enough to let them spend some precious time outside the classroom with the latest tools of creativity. Digital newspapers, interactive advertising, mobile educational games, RFID enabled music players – in the flash of a 3 hour workshop, the kids worked digital tools to end up with functional products of tomorrow.
It is said that 30% of Amsterdam’s net income is generated by creative businesses. That’s quite impressive, but PICNIC and the city of Amsterdam are also clever to focus some efforts at securing the future income of creativity.
Watching the teens work painlessly towards creative output, I thought for a second that their teachers need these digital tools workshops the most! Students of today are digital natives: They were born into a world of internet and mobile technology and feel right at home using them. So who are the digital immigrants? Well, if you use the term ‘digital camera’ you hint at being one. To a digital native every camera is ‘digital’ and your thick pre-digital accent reveals you as a 20th century graduate.
If you want to know more about the digital natives and how to speak their language you could start by watching the webcast of the New Media Days 07 session, Det Grønne Guld (The Green Gold), where a panel of 5 Danish teenagers is interviewed by qualitative media analyst, Sofie Scheutz, and educational consultant, Aslak Gottlieb. Coming from different social backgrounds and sporting different interests they each talk about their media use and needs for the future.
If you’re able to reschedule your afternoon tomorrow, Tuesday 30th, Innovation Lab has reigned in Marc Prensky, inventor of the term ‘digital natives’, to give an exclusive talk on the subject at the IT-University in Copenhagen. More information to be found on the Innovation Lab website.
If you have an hour to spare then watch the show “Growing Up Online” from Frontline Online. It’s quite thought provoking: Is the the Internet really corrupting our children? A lot of dodgy content is out there, and the interactive medium is very attention grabbing, but it’s a tool of huge benefits also. Best advice for digital immigrants: Watch the digital natives and learn.
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Are you born digital or digitally challenged?