DIGITAL NATIVES, DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS
Did you watch the video about the people stuck on the escalator yet? It’s an exaggerated
picture of our dependence upon technology, but I think that lots of older adults are
afraid that the escalator problem represents future digital natives. They are afraid that
future generations might have key areas missing in their thought processes. I disagree. I
think digital natives have some wonderful skills they bring to the classroom and life.
For the most part, I agree with Marc Prensky in his article about Digital Natives, Digital
Immigrants, but I am open to other opinions and understand why some people strongly disagree
with parts or all of what he says. Let’s look at some of the key areas.
Right away he starts by saying that today’s students are very different from those in
the past and that our education system is not prepared to effectively teach them. He
argues that the methods of our teaching, as well as the content of our curriculum, need
to be translated into digital in order to fulfill the requirements of digital natives
in the future. People usually have a strong reaction against the idea of dropping some
content, such as geometry, from our education systems. They are more open to the idea of
adding more emphasis on subjects such as logic and politics. They aren’t as sure about
the need for the study of robotics or nanotechnology. Let’s face it. Information is increasing
at exponential rates and we have no chance of teaching students all the important facts;
however, we must be able to teach skills, strategies, methods, and metacognitive strategies.
Teach how to think and they’ll be able to apply it to any situation, including when
the escalator stops. I think that as long as digital immigrants
have control of the education system, there will not be any major changes, but individual
teachers need to think about how they can more effectively reach digital natives. We
can either complain about their lack of concentration, or we can give them projects and tasks with
interesting goals rather than expecting them to fill in worksheets or other mindless activities.
I think that we should add more problem-solving activities in our classes and help students
logically look at solutions to difficult scenarios like pollution or the digital divide.
The digital divide refers to the gap between the haves and the have nots. Those who have
technology and Internet access and those who don’t. It is not necessarily ethically divided.
It is a financial division as well as a division between urban areas and rural areas.
I personally feel like trying to adjust our educational system to better accommodate the
ADD-like (Attention Deficit Disorder) behavior of students is welcome. Piaget’s theory
of cognitive development from the early 1900’s remains the main influence on our teachers.
He viewed instructors as the experts and students were the empty receptacles being filled up
by the instructor. If digital natives finally force us away from that concept, I will be
very grateful. By the way, digital natives don’t expect
their teachers to be the experts, so if you are a digital immigrant teaching digital natives,
you can relax. Let them teach each other and you. Teachers are expected to serve as managers
and facilitators. A friend of mine told me that her son and
his friends have “LAN” parties where each of them brings part of a computer network,
the harddrive, monitor, modem, etc., and they connect several computers together to increase
their capabilities and do their assignments together. In the case she was mentioning,
the assignment was creating a video and editing it into a final form. She also said that her
son and his friends get together online almost every night via conferencing and gaming software
to go over their homework (before, during and after the game). That kind of initiative
– where teens gather without being told to by teachers to use technology and learn
– can be used by instructors in some interesting ways if we are open to it.