Friday, July 10, 2009

Google, the migrant and the native

Google's recent announcement to create their own OS, I think, is one of those eventualities in life that will eventually unfold itself, very much like death and taxes! But more importantly, the rationale of them doing so is in their belief that the current OS'es were designed in an age where Internet was not THE main tool of communication. Fast forward to the current time and age, it might just be true, but until I get to see their final product, I should hold my comments for another day. But what I do admire most is in their spirit to change and innovate, and perhaps, to hopefully challenge the conventional idea of what an OS should be, or ought to be.

Which brings me to the argument that I have regarding this polarisation of digital natives and migrants. Tying in closely with Google's reasons for coming out with their own OS that would be leveraging on new technologies, shouldn't teaching and learning pedagogies too be also embarking on such a similar journey of change. I mean if we are going to be moulding children that would land jobs that we ourselves are not familiar with, shouldn't the whole scheme of things, of how teaching should be, and how learning is going, or ought to be, also change to take into account these very multi-dimensionality of human's capacity to learn. And perhaps, for arguments' sake, shouldn't the very fibre of assessment too change with the times? And shouldn't we be encouraging a mass migration of digital migrants to digital natives?

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