Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I consider myself a digital immigrant. “As Digital Immigrants learn—like all immigrants, some better than others—to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their “accent.” That is, their foot in the past” (Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001). As I was reading the article for this class, which I printed out from the web in order to write notes along the edges, I discovered that a digital native would never do such a thing. I am proficient at email, txt msg, and web surfing. I love to download music and watch television with the digital extras. I have never been a big video gamer, give me a good book any day. It’s the things like preferring a book and a face to face conversation that give me an immigrant accent.

When I was in high school, the coolest technology was in the newspaper lab. We had ten computers with Photoshop and Indesign. But in the classroom it was over-heads and not much else. We used books and had maybe an explanation of how to site web sources, but not until I was into my upper level courses as a junior or senior. The difference in college was tremendous. I was taking completely online classes. And my auditorium classes had online classrooms and discussion boards and PowerPoint presentations. Our art computer labs were filled with the newest Macintosh computers, top of the line scanners, and a ten thousand dollar photo-printer. The ability for me to learn about functioning in our ever expanding technological world as it relates to me.

The video about including the use of digital media within the classroom really challenged my ideas. I found that I had unintentionally adopted my predecessors’ ideas about the use of the web, cell phones, and technology in the classroom. It’s not that our students are board, but it that they are uninspired. “Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001). The educators are not communicating in the language of the digital natives. “What they are being served is, for the most part, stale, bland, and almost entirely stuff from the past. Yesterday’s education for tomorrow’s kids. Where is the programming, the genomics, the bioethics, the nanotech—the stuff of their time?” (Prensky, Educause, 2005). It is our job as teachers to meet them where they are and our students are in a digital world, so this where we will meet them.