Digital Native...or Digital Immigrant?

As I organized myself to begin this assignment post, I began a systematic thought process that many educators today go through on a day to day basis. Step one, get my readings ready. Step two, get ready to take notes. Knowing that my readings were articles available only online I thought, well, I could read them online but what if I want to annotate them with notes? Ok, I thought to myself, read them online and take notes in my notebook. Another thought aroused. I could just print them out! Print them out! This was the sub conscious urge I felt in the back of my mind. Print out the articles and take notes in your good old fashion notebook. Now, I KNOW I can annotate them digitally while I read. After all, I'm a technology teacher! But why is this an afterthought? I am a digital immigrant.

Prensky did an exceptional job distinguishing the characteristics of students today and those who did not grow up in a digital rich world in his article, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants." He refers students today as "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. Digital immigrants on the other hand, are those who did not grow up in this environment and experienced very different learning experiences themselves. In my own k-12 schooling, I was not surrounded by a fast paced environment, with unlimited stimuli at my fingertips. As much as I have grown in my own skills with technology, at times I still hear my own digital accent slowly trying to fight its way back out.

Part two of Prensky's article, "Do They Really Think Differently"  drew upon the science of neuroplasticity. It was interesting to learn that the brain maintains its plasticity for life. I also found the section on attention span to be eye opening. After all, us teachers have been claiming for years that this new generation has no attention span because everything is too stimulating. It was shocking to hear that the focus group of students watching the television program with toys in the room recalled just as much vital information as the group without toys. This goes beyond past assumptions on learning and information processing. If these students are able to multi-task, who are we to tell them not to?  The final point I took away from this was how beneficial games are to learning. It is key to remember that games are effective when they are real games and building skills on real content. I feel reaffirmed as an educator knowing that I always provide links to great educational games on my school blog that I come across. I decided to end my post with a video I found on edutopia called, "Welcome to the Digital Generation."