Digital Natives Going to College

More notes from Vancouver's session with the International folk:

Shaun McElroy, a counselor in Shanghai (and blogger about all things relevant to the international student here), was co-presenting a session on Web 2.0 in college admissions. One implication for BOTH sides of the audience (college/university personnel AND the counselors on the high school side): the realization that "digital natives" are by and large taking over the college-bound set.

If you're new to the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant" -- well, they are as they sound. Digital natives have always grown up with stuff that's electronic. Digital immigrants remember putting film into cameras. Things like that.

Leading us to another possible extension of this term: "facebook natives" and "facebook immigrants."

The natives were the early adopters who HAD to have a "dot-edu" email address to use facebook (so that, ironically, they could stop reading email and JUST use facebook to communicate). The immigrants -- I'm one of them, I'll admit -- are the ones who have just recently been allowed into the facebook universe.

AND then there's those who make up fake names for themselves (more popular on mySpace than facebook)...would those be "facebook aliens?"

This college-bound set would include, then, digital natives who are, theoretically, facebook immigrants. They're trying to connect most efficiently with digital natives (who recruit for colleges) who might work for a digital immigrant.

txt me if this doesn't make sense.