Having been born in the mid-2000s, I, along with my peers, have never known a world without the internet. This reality involved anything from clicking on websites to downloading the newest Club Penguin game. This home addiction spiraled its way into the classroom, where schools were creating their own computer labs. They learned to type on a keyboard before they knew how to do long-division.
Learning during this time was unprecedented: there were no limits on what information we could see or understand. Although we were using school-provided and monitored emails, it was easy click on and off of web games that required us to put in our names and ages. Even at our homes, we would do this without thinking, all to be able to hop onto a new popular game with all our friends.
Learning The School Computer
Having had this childhood and learning how to exist in the digital age beyond just for pleasure was, as Martha Fay Burtis claims, “messy, chaotic, wonderful, and awful.” Everything we knew about technology was shifting. It could have been using Google Docs over Microsoft Word, or even using tablets over laptops. The school administration subjected us to performing our best. To become the best, we had to use all of their databases and rules. Schools gave students little autonomy in finding out the academic internet for themselves. Teachers provided information to give students, such as resources, databases, and laptops. However, this hurt students in defining and refining their own skills as digital nomads: research, locating reliable sources, and even learning how to express themselves online.
As changes in innovations progressed in the digital realm, students continued to fall behind. They now have to play around with this important source of information to learn how to use it for themselves. However, they are also expected to stand to standards they were not aware of. This is a continuous loop that always repeats itself, currently present in the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) usage. While some teachers praise and others punish for its use, students are not taught how to use this resource properly and are not taught an important skill for a growingly interdependent collaboration with AI.
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