Teaching for today or for the future - with reference to the past

Call it Baby Boomer sensitivity or whatever it is, I have been struggling to come to terms with what I view as the somewhat negative implications in terminology such as "Digital Native" and "Digital Immigrants" as put forward by Marc Prensky and the "Net Generation" of Don Tapscott. I may have to conclude that they are fundamentally correct if it comes to the letter of the definition. But I'd like to try to balance this wonder world with the world of those who are the Immigrants, and challenge the notion that Baby Boomers' culture consisted of "rock n'roll, long hair, protest movements, weird clothes and new lifestyles" as Tapscott puts it.
The changes to culture, and especially in the arena of technology and communication has been astronomical during my lifetime. The Net Generation may well have grown up and within a digital culture but there are a good many others of us who have been on a massive ride of change throughout our entire lives. Many of us have continually adapted and adopted.
I agree with the proposition that Digital culture and digital literacy are not necessarily the same thing. I sit in front of a computer every day, I LOVE that what I want to know is at my fingertips, even when I am out at dinner thanks to my iPhone. I work them all for everything I can get out of them but I don't know that I ever feel I am literate about them and certainly many times not totally comfortable. If something goes wrong I get a funny flutter in my tummy. What the..... do I do now? And then go ahead like I am entering a dark cave and attempt to manoeuvre my way into a solution. If all else fails I might even try the old fashioned telephone only to be greeted with a faceless voice guiding me through a succession of button pushing motions. It seems that only by ignoring this digital faceless voice that I might be able to get to speak with a real person, albeit in a different country. Marshall McLuhan - this is indeed the 'tribal village' of which you spoke all those years ago.

There are contradictions though. One Chris Pirillo, who I found on Youtube expounding on his take on the world, defined digital culture as "pervasive technology; assuming a solution is going to be there; part of ourselves and by extension our society". He claims that the world of the 80's was "me, me, me" but digital culture is "You and me". Yet he also says "I don't need to interact with human beings". Marshall McLuhan talked about the 'individual' as the dominant notion in the book/print age as opposed to the 'global village' notion he saw the world entering. But the village when I was a child was real. It may not have been global and the thought of travelling the globe was pretty daunting and expensive. But our communication was with other people in our community every day and in person - touchy, feely and face to face- and for as many hours as the communication that now takes place behind the screen of a computer. The 'me, me, me' was not the selfish communication it now comes across as. And it involved much more use of the other part of us - the part requiring physical movement.
I could list what I have seen change and have had to adapt to over my nearly 60 years but the list is too long. Enough to say that when I started school and began writing, I learned to write with a nib and an inkwell, in florid copperplate style, complete with blotches, dried out with a blotter, in desks nailed to the floor, 40-50 to a class. The Bic pen was such a threat to our writing skills that we had to write with pencil again when I reached high school, until that 'technology' was approved for use. Television was not officially introduced into Australian society till 1956 and the Melbourne Olympic Games was really the springboard for that. I in fact did not even have a television in my home until I was nearly 30. I had to present major essays for uni typewritten, initially paying someone to do so before I purchased an Olivetti Typewriter.
In the late 70's I was introduced to the Apple II computer and was one of the first in my community to buy one for home. It was primarily for word processing although the advent of games including educational games made it an instant hit with my children and the 'educational' bent made me feel ok about them using it. To differentiate between the 'serious' nature of the Apple II and the wish for something more suitable for games, I invested in a Commodore 64 for the children.
So my children literally grew up with a computer. But I grew into it. I think that was much more difficult!
Every generation will face change and be in fact the drivers of change. Every generation born into that change is comfortable with it. Prensky says "..the biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely different language." But those of the today generation - the Digital Natives or the Net Generation, will surely face change themselves and be the drivers of that change. If the last 60 years have seen change more than that of any other time in history, then what can this generation expect? And do they have the skills in every area of life to cope with that change? It seems to me that the overlap from one generation to another is always of great benefit in adapting - compare and contrast and improve or remove. It's niave I think to speak of the "immigrants" outdated language, as if it is unsuitable for the students using a language these immigrants helped create and develop. Maybe education for the future is not about the language of the digital generation but of how to adapt to any language which they or us may develop or refine into the future.

Dr Ken Robinson, in http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html , talks about another area in today's world which seems to be somewhat forgotten altogether in the drive to be technologically/digitally savvy. Creativity. Dr Robinson makes this point - the children who started school this year will retire in 2065. How do we educate them for life when we haven't a clue where the next 5 years is taking us?