Digital Natives versus Digital Immigrants

Marc Prensky's "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" and "Do They Really Think Differently" struck a chord with me this week. These articles can be found at www.marcprensky.com under Writing if you are not in my class and would like to take a look at them. I think what really struck me was that I realized that I am not quite a Digital Native but am not really a Digital Immigrant, either; this is probably due more to a lack of interest in computers and technology on my part than not being born at the right time. I consider myself to be right in the middle, just because I can do basic technological things but don't enjoy doing anything more than required with them.

Marc Prensky's statement in the first paragraph of the first part of his article, "Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach" is, I believe, right on the money. As I work in the middle school library, watching the students use the computers to do school work, this becomes more and more apparent to me. For many of the students, computers are the ONLY reason they come to the library. These kids already have a higher level of sophistication with technology than I think I will ever have, no matter how many courses I take to remedy that situation. However, although I agree with the fact that some middle-aged to older teachers may be Digital Immigrants, I believe that many of them are trying to remedy that situation. As I observe in the library, I find that most of the teachers bringing their classes in to use the computers are the older teachers. They are having their students create sophisticated Powerpoint presentations and are having them use computer games to learn languages. Although I understand Marc Prensky's point, I think things have moved in a very positive direction since 2001.

However, there is no doubt that students are learning in a completely different way since the advent of computers and video games. It is no longer sufficient to teach only reading, writing, math, and science, because, not only are students learning differently, careers are also requiring more technological experience. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to learn to incorporate technology and multimedia into their curriculums just as illustrated in "Increasing Student Learning Through Multimedia Projects" by Michael Simkins, et. al. Although it takes some work, it is really not as hard as many people believe.

I also found the second part of Prensky's article "Do They Really Think Differently?" intriguing. I have a degree in Psychology from Gettysburg College, so many of the things mentioned in this part of the article were familiar to me. I had concentrated mostly on social psychology and neuropsychology. Therefore, I knew that it is possible to restructure a brain. As an example not mentioned in the article, some patients have half of their brains removed, either because of injury or to prevent seizures (these patients sometimes have their brains split as well). Although it takes time, the half of the brain that is left eventually takes over for tasks that the other half would normally have done.

Students today have restructured their brains to think in a completely different way and teachers must reaccommodate to that, as much time as that will take. Students simply do not learn the same way anymore. They become bored quickly and I believe that learning to incorporate multimedia into the curriculum is one way to take care of that, as I believe Marc Prensky thinks as well.