Social computing environments, Digital Natives and instructional technology: Promises of equality and practices of exclusion

This paper examines the discursive confluence of social computing environments, Digital Natives and the practices of instructional technology delineating how these discourses can potentially create exclusion in the implementation and instructional use of these technologies. Educators are adopting social networking ideas and technologies in order to create educational opportunities for students. These trends are based on the assumption that creating knowledge using these technologies is more democratic compared to experiences in traditional classrooms where unequal power relations may be more oppressive and where content comes from monolithic and static sources like textbooks. Subject positions are created for students on social networking sites that offer the appearance of equal participation but actually contain their own social hierarchies and oppressions.