I'm tired of hearing people say, "Students know how to use technology." I am! While there are a multitude of statistics that imply that young adults--really anyone born after about 1980--use (and love) technology, too many individuals and organizations use this as a blanket statement. It may be the majority of individuals--but I'd be hard pressed to agree that it was everyone.
For me, it's extremely dangerous to assume that because of someone's age, they are intuitively capable--or even interested--in technology. Although many studies indicate that "digital natives" are more likely to be users of technology, the ways in which they are using technologies can be very different than the academic uses. Being able to text and update Facebook, for example, are important skills for communicating--but often decidedly unhelpful when it comes to academic assignments. No professor or teacher that I know would accept a formal essay written in texting style. These differences between formal and informal uses of technology can often be barriers to learning with technology. Identifying--and explicitly instructing on these issues--is often key in helping "digital natives" become successful in using technology in academic, and even career applications.
With each of these videos, I was instinctively apprehensive about the implicit conclusion that current students need to be taught with technology. There are too many ways that technology can be used as a band-aid, rather than in appropriate pedagogical ways. Videos like these--and indeed Prensky-ism in general--seems to be used as evidence that any technology is good technology. And for me, using technology badly is worse than not using it at all.
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