New Skills=New Disabilities ?

In many of the articles I have read this year, the concept of technology in the classroom has been described as being beneficial specifically to students with learning disabilities. Many readings has cited that a digital classroom provides certain students a new venue to engage and express themselves; to help take a concept further by providing a visual or audio supplement. While there is certainly no doubt in my mind that many students with disabilities or challenges will strive with the modification to the conventional classroom, I can help but anticipate the potential rise of a new category of disabilities, “Digital Disabilities”.

For example, the Regan article that discusses why technology needs to be taught in the 21^st century classroom described how the digital age has ushered in new skills that need to be learned and new contexts arise within the digital world where existing skills will need to be adapted to handle. For example, with the surplus of information on the Internet, kids need to apply the ability of separating important information from excess. This is a skill that has always been championed but in the digital world it has a new application.

I am curious if these “new skills” or new applications will in turn create a new type of disability. For example, students who have problems retrieving previously learned information and applying it to new material will have great trouble researching on the Internet (especially when so much sorting is required). Will these students who have fine motor issues “fall behind” in a digital classroom?

As a complete side note, I thought the idea of technology as a universal language to be completely mind blowing. The notion as well of a technical immigrant is so accurate that I will bring it into my vernacular without question.