Tuesday 17 March 2009

Stephen Fry on digital natives

Do you ever wonder whether the "digital natives" John was talking about yesterday can write a text message, watch a YouTube video, do their homework on paper, all at the same time, and still be listening to you? I sometimes wonder, but übergeek Stephen Fry seems to think it's no problem. He contributed to a broadcast by Kenan Malik on BBC Radio 4 that asked whether the web is rewiring the brains of young people, and if so, whether we should be worried. A prolific user of twitter himself (http://twitter.com/stephenfry), Stephen Fry has only positive things to say about his own experience. The experts are saying that kids today may not be reading and researching the way older generations did, their attention spans may be shorter, but they can switch quickly between different media and use the huge amounts of information there in new ways. But are they multi-tasking or multi-slacking? Listen to the 28 minute broadcast as a podcast (an mp3 download) and read or print out Stephen Fry's comments here: BBC News.

About two years ago Stephen Fry talked about the potential of the internet for learning in an interview recorded for www.videojug.com, a video sharing site. Did you know that you can download the videos there? It's easy, you just need to register there. Here is Stephen:


Understanding The Internet: Stephen Fry: The Internet

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