Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants is a great article by Marc Prensky. It helps puts me in a frame of mind that I am a Digital Immigrant and one of those reasons is that I do not like change. Prensky states that brain functions between digital natives and immigrants are at different paces. Our current students are first generation natives that are growing up with this new technology computers, video games, digital music players, and cell phones. These students however spent less time reading books and spent a lot more time two times as more playing video games and texting all day. These different experiences lead to different ways of life styles and how we go about using technology. Digital Natives which are our students are very active, fun, does multi-tasking, and full of life and energy.
As for me I have to say I am slow to change and consider myself a Digital Immigrant that is coming around. With all the social networks out there the only one I can keep up with is Face book in the 21st Century. The use of short had texting I am also not a big fan of because the students are so comfortable using slang that they carry it into the classroom for example most student spell because in the short hand abbreviation becuz and put that way of spelling the word in their papers and this can lead to students learning a word wrong and that is a hard habit to break. Being a Digital Immigrant it is a transition for me to become a Digital Native. My kids for sure will be Digital Natives because growing up with everyone in the house having a laptop and a cell phone is common now. Even three year olds are on the computer and it is a part of their lives where I did not grow up with multi computers in the house. There was one stand alone computer in our house that was in the front room that everyone had to share and we had dial up internet. It was not until college when I brought my own home computer and just barely upgraded to a laptop computer.
Technology will be and is a part of any classroom that you walk into today. More and more teachers are turning to technology and other programs to enhance their students learning and keep their students engaged in the lesson better than a boring lesson. Technology does belong in the classroom with our new Digital Native students and will be a part of my class because I know the old way of teaching does not keep our students engaged. I can embrace this new technology to help aid in my students learning and the results of them becoming lifelong learners will be all the reward I need to know that I am doing the right thing with bringing technology into the classroom. All I have to do is get other teachers on board that get it like I do and see the value of technology and get on board to teach these students in their language.
I'm with the cartoon above all do the homework he can do the website. If I had children even they would still be digital immigrants, maybe my grandchildren would have been digital natives. But, me I am definitely a digital immigrant. I think that the students of today are learning things at a faster rate because of technology. But, whatever happened to reading a good book. Are children not going to read books anymore? I know they can probably read one online, but what about the visual learner if there are no pictures and the sound learner are they going to listen to recorded books? I know this isn't as important for all the learning that they can do by computers. But, children are losing their imaginations, through this process, if you give them a paper and tell them to make something they are lost without their gadgets.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about students texting words the misspelled way. Even some adults are doing it too. It is a convenient way to text, but when it spills into the real world it makes a person look like they're not too smart. My old manager used to tell me that he would get applications for employment with lots of errors and that would make him not want to hire them. It's a shame that our children can't tell the difference between text language and real world language.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I agree with you 100% change can be difficult, I can relate to you I only have a face book and I rarely log on to it. Technology does have its place inside the classroom without doubt. 21st student need that extra stimulation that technology has to offer. As you mention even three year olds know how to operate a computer. Because the majority of the toys today are interactive. When my daugther was 8 months old, I bought her a toy laptop that goes right over a real keyboard. I recently purchased a Leap Frog teddy bear that connects to the computer, so you can program it to say the child’s name, and it came with a USB cord. My reaction was wow! Technology’s is progressing rapidly, and as educators, parents and students we all need to learn how to utilize it so we can become smarter and not just look to be entertain. I think that is where the controversy between the digital native and digital immigrants arises. Many digital natives have allowed technology to become a learning crutch and not a learning aid. You made a good point about students using short hand (text) in the classroom, I think that is un acceptable, but digital natives tend to think it’s okay. I recall seeing a texting dictionary that blow me away, what is this world coming to. It is as if society is promoting improper spelling. Similar to the new language (Ebonics) they created, the reason behind that was that African Americans could not speak correctly. As a future educator, I think it is important to teach students using both digital native and digital immigrant teaching style.
ReplyDeleteI find it funny that you mention students bring "texting slang" into the classroom. Being that I myself am only 23 years old and texting was introduced when I was in high school, I text many times a day. I often times find myself writing words such as, "tho" instead of though and leaving our vowels when spelling words. This is a bad habbit that sometimes I bring into school and sometimes work. I catch myself sometimes writing in a texting language and have to correct myself. Sometimes I find that I am so used to spelling words incorrectly that I forget for a second how to spell them correctly. I predictive text (t9) is a wonderful thing, students can text quicker with out spelling words incorrectly, since this can become a spelling issue in the classroom.
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