I am a digital native; I remember having a computer in my first grade classroom, and had my first hotmail account in middle school. I can't imagine a time when people went through college without a laptop.
My search also turned up an article by Marc Pensky, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". He claims that "today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors" because of the multitude of technology they've grown up with. Doesn't it seem incredibly daunting that teachers much older than their students are expected to teach these kids how to think and process information?? Pensky puts it best when he refers to our knowledge and experience with technology as a language:
"our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an out-dated language (that of a pre-digital age) are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language".So what can we do about it?
I listened to a podcast interview of John Palfrey, the author of Born Digital, and when asked of what he hopes his five year-old son will learn about the internet at school, he starts off by saying that, "I hope that his teachers are sensitive to the fact that he comes at the world and thinks about information and relationships quite differently than they do."
I believe this is the first step to reaching out to our student population. Teachers need to accept and be comfortable with the fact that our students don't think like they do. We need to open up and let kids teach us how they use technology, and integrate their skills with our knowledge. Without this change in mentality, I imagine Digital Immigrants will be stuck in a continuous cycle of frustration!
What is my role in this picture? As a Digital Native and teacher, it is my goal to bridge the gap between Natives and Immigrants.
Keep an open mind.
