My interview with Caden

I did my digital native interview for the first assignment with Caden Muller. He is my five year old nephew who has so much more knowledge about technology than I do! Caden first understood how to use a cell phone when he was about one. Children watch by learning and he knew that to talk on the cellphone you hold it to your ear walk around the room and gesture with your arms. We always thought this was so funny but looking back on it now I realize that he was already proving that his generation was going to show ours up when it comes to technology. I remember when Caden first learned to use a wii. We were trying to teach him to play Mario Cart because we thought it would be funny. He figured out pretty quickly that it was a lot more fun to drive the car off a cliff so the character would yell "oooooo" Now he will play competitively but at the time he just wanted to crash the cars! His new favorite "toy" is the ipad. He is an absolute master with that thing. He taught me how to use mine!

I always thought of myself as decent with technology. I can figure out how to use things by playing around with them or reading a guide but I never really had to ask for help. At work I'm the youngest person on staff. By a lot. So they always come to me with technology questions and I generally know the answer or how to fix the problem at hand. Until I really took at look at the situation I would have called myself a digital native but now I realize that I am really not! I didn't grow up with computers or computer games, I didn't have a cell phone until I was in high school. I wasn't even allowed to watch more than one show a day as a child! I spent my time playing outside jumping in rivers and catching frogs. I would consider myself a digital immigrant. But I was on an earlier boat than a lot of people I guess.