2) What difference to all this might the 'digital divide' make?

To socioeconomically related access issues within a society?

The way people are divided right now is likely to only widen the digital divide of which we speak. The CofP of digital natives may be unlikely to let a digital immigrant into their ways and could become a very closed group indeed which stops the digital immigrants from developing their technological skills as they are unlikely to receive help from the digital natives. One of the main purposes of a CofP is social learning, so digital natives will arguably always keep eachother up to data on "the latest" when it comes to new websites, tools, online communities, gadgets and technologies while digital immigrants are running behind having great difficulty keeping up with the ever changing world of the digital natives.

This is deffinitely a problem when it comes to situation where the two group work together, like education, where the teachers (immigrants) are having great difficulty in uderstanding and therefore correctly addressing their pupils (natives). Educational institutions such as schools do introduce new IT facilities but are still finding it hard to keep up because the evolution of technologies is shared within the Digital Native CofP and not communicated to the immigrants in the same way.

This does assume that all the pupils (or anyone else from the digital-native's generation for that matter) are actually able to use and are familiar with these technology-inflicted social changesin their own lives. However, for economic reasons mainly, not all of these younger (under 28) people are zactually in a position where they have access to these technologies intheir own lives and there they might not be too keen on any changes made by mainstream society and, as a part of that, the educational system, as to what is expected from people of this generation as they aren't part of it and will have as much difficulty (and will be left behind just as much) as other age-specific digital immigrants. So basically, the divide bewteen natives and immigrants isn't just a matter of agegroup, but also of whether or not people have been able to adapt these changes.

To global access issues across countries and regions?

The digital divide between the western world and 3rd world countries is a huge one, mainly because in the western world the financial sithuation makes for a great percentage of the population to be able to use and familiarise themselves with digital technologies where in the third world the great mjority of people do not have access to these kind of technologies at all.

The situation is almost a much bigger version of the problem described above. The Western countries, all familiar with these technologies are contantly improving their technologies and the third world ends up limping behind. (At the moment they might

Fast forward a few decades where digital natives are the only people left in the western world: technologies has completely changed western society as a whole in the way we interacts as well as the way our social practises are shaped. While Western society has gotten into the habit of communicationg, socialising, delling, buying, educating and practising politics using these technologies it will differ even more from society AND POLITICS in the third world countries.

The two parts of the world will arguable, over the years, grow more and more seperate from eachother creating an even wider digital divide, and through this a wider divide in politics, economics, education, everything. Alienating the two from each other.

1) How might Wenger's notions on practice communities relate to Prensky's on education?

Yes, there is a way in which the two different theories from Prensky & Wenger do link together, I think.

Wegner's theory of the communities of practise predominantly talks about groups of individuals who, because they share the same goals and, I guess, ideologies & practises, improve themselves and establish themselves more trhough communicating to eachother.

Meanwhile Prensky theorises about how digital natives's these days have a completely different set of social practises because of the way they use technology, which, he claims, has caused these younger people to differ from others (digital immigrants) in the way they communicate, research, socialise, shop, learn etc. etc. etc.

You could well argue that this group of people, with their own new set of social standards, social practises, ideologies and aspirations is therefore a good example of a Community of Practise.

Week 9 | Describe the daily frustrations of a fictional neo-luddite at university now in the UK.

A neo-luddite would probably struggle with quite a few things in Uni. For example, handbooks are posted online rather than handed out, time tables are online, lecturers EMAIL students about lecture cancellations and other VITAL information. On the social side of things (s)he's also going to miss out as most of people events and parties are communicated on Facebook rather than IRL. A lot of discussion about work also taken place on Facebook and MSN. The neo-luddite would find it hard to keep in contact with friends as all that takes place with the use of social networking and mobile telephones and the degree will suffer because of the lack of access to things like blackboard and MChome where essential information is found.

Submission of assessments would pretty much be impossible as they need to be typed and printed and, in some cases on some courses, actually handed in electronically.

So yeah, basically, it couldn't be done. A Neo-luddite would not fare well at a modern day university at all because the courses as well as the social part of uni life heavily rely on digital technologies.

Community of practice

A community of practice is the process where a group of individuals come together and learn from eachother because they have similar, or,the same, goals. They interact together as they aim to reach these goals.

An example of this could be a facebook discussion group of people who are all struggling with the same unit at uni. They could support and interact with each other to help eachother out to reach the shared goal of passing the unit, something they might not have been able to without eachother's help within the CofP.

CofP's are born out of these common goals and the desire of all members to succes at achieving them and are not set up by some greater authority. In this example, the CofP is not a form of support provided by the university of any other support-institution, it has spontaniously come to exist out of the members' desire to succeed.

The forum on this unit COULD be seen as a CofP, however it HAS been set up by the university. The discussion groups on this specific unit that are going on Facebook and similar platforms, however, have spontaniously come to exist due to interaction between students with the same problems and aims.