Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

First, learning how to create a new window so that I can toggle between two items is great and will save me a huge amount of time in my job and also on this assignment.

I think Prensky identified the differences between the two groups and explained the differences in a very understandable way. It was interesting for me as the English Language Learner Coordinator for our district to see Prensky use this analogy of native and immigrants.

I thought back on my sons growing up in the semi-digital age and how technologically sauve they are now. They were boys when the first video games came out and we went to video arcades to play the games for a quarter, we didn't have a home computer and we rented the video machine as well as the video to watch a movie on Friday night. But then watching my niece grow up completely in the digital age I see a difference even between her and our sons. My niece as many people in their 20's have it seems an innate ability to figure out how digital items work. I do think peoples brains are wired in someways differently and now with the ability to study the brain processing information as it is doing a task I think we will have more and more proof of that.

The fear that people would become too isolated because of technology now seems to be swinging a bit too far the other way. With e-mail, instant messaging, cell phones it seems it can be difficult to have time without interacting. With all tools though it is how we each choose to use them that makes the difference.

I liked what Prensky had to say regarding why can't learning be fun and why does it have to be in a sequential order, we do have to change some of our teaching styles and that is not all bad. He stated that college graduates have spent less then 5,000 hours reading but have spent 20,000 hours watching TV. I think this is pointing out that there are many ways to gain information and once again it is the quality of the reading and the quality of what is watched on TV that makes the ultimate difference.

I think reading is an extremely important skill but I know that this generation will get much of their information from other electronic sources. I belong to two Book Groups but in actuality I hardly ever read the books, I listen to them on audio because it is easier and it works better for my schedule since I commute. I have had conversations with others who actually thought listening to a book did not "count" as reading the book. That was when I realized how using different types of technology are perceived and not always positively perceived.

This author does come from the premise that all students kindergarten through college are growing up in the digital age. There still is a difference between the immersion into technology that he describes for the middle and upper middle class as to the experiences with technology that families in poverty may have. In working with English Language learners, especially those who have immigrated for work many families have little experience with computers, digital cameras and mp3 players. I do think it is important for all students in schools to be computer literate and these opportunities will have to take place in our schools if all students will have the opportunity. So we will actually have children who have immigrated to the U.S. who will also be digital immigrants and so could have different ways of learning than their Digital Native peers.

It is interesting to watch how our district is doing so much on-line with the presumption that all families have Internet access. Our school transfer process can only be done on-line, as well as our job application process and we just had an on-line parent survey. It seems like the digital divide is widening.

This article I am going to send to our Technology director as I think it makes some very good points to consider.


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