Digital-Natives

As part of my research for my MA thesis on digitalization and its effects on culture and photography, I set up a Flickr group with some of my A level photography students. It is called 'Digital-Natives', which is a term that was coined by Marc Prensky in 2001, referring to the generations who have been 'born digital' in Western society. Born after 1980, these 'screenagers' and young adults have not known life without the Internet and mobile phones... Whereas those of us born before the 'digital revolution' are 'Digital Immigrants', we have had to learn the digital language, secondary and have varying degrees of 'accents', such as printing off our blogs/emails... because we might not trust the Internet fully... for example!





As a teacher, it is important that I recognize the differences between my 'digital native' students and how they learn from the way I was taught... They do have shorter attention spans, for example, but this does not necessarily mean that they are lazy, they do things differently - often multitasking - being switched onto 4 or 5 different media at a time - rather than sitting and reading a book or just watching the TV without being online and listening to music at the
same time for example...
The idea behind the Flickr group, was to create a place where we could take discussion outside of the classroom, taking it to a higher level than the time we have in lessons allows for and to work on a collaborative project with no hierarchy. I wanted to involve students in some educational research - giving them a voice for a change. Aware that I may be learning from them as they are more 'connected' than me!
I started the project by getting all of my students to answer a questionnaire, asking them what photography was to them and how they use it... this resulted in fairly predictable general answers, such as "capturing a moment" and the fact that they don't print their photos very often, as it's cheaper and easier to share photos online and store them digitally... I was concerned as to how useful the analogue techniques and philosophies that I teach in class were to them... but it was unanimous that they were very keen to learn traditional photography and this is of great importance to them! I believe that despite the ever changing climate with digitalisation, it is integral to photography education, that learners start with basic analogue equipment and techniques - processing and printing negative-film in a darkroom, in order to understand how photography works and to learn its history...



The next stage was a series of lunchtime discussions and debates about photography, with a group of volunteers and from there we formed the Flickr group and have been continuing the debate and discussions online.
This is the first time I have worked with students in this way and it has proved to be quite fruitful in engaging them in issues in photography, outside off their coursework...
Although, I hoped that we would be equal, I have had to take a leading role, both in facilitating meetings and keeping things going online, but some of the students have shown initiative in starting new topics... Surprisingly the group has posted a lot more discussion than images; because the project is quite conceptual they seem to be finding it difficult to visualize and I have had to return to my 'teacher' role, briefing them on ideas... The fact that these students are giving their own time freely to the project is a very positive sign of their interest and commitment to the subject. Is this way of working more suitable for todays generation, rather than setting them a 'summer project' in a sketchbook for example? Or will the same dedicated students always put in more work regardless of media? I think that doing a project like this may tie in with the way young people use media - checking this site and adding comment, as often as they check their 'Facebook' and emails... it's just another 'page' to look at...



The Flickr group is open to people who want to join us and from august it will become 'public' (people wont have to join in order to contribute) I would be very grateful for any feedback on our Flickr group and whether people think it is useful, how intelligent it is... ideas for improvement... as I intend to incorporate it into my thesis exhibition as well, at the beginning of September... Please check it out by clicking here and join us if you're interested!