Digital Natives- Digital Immigrant

James Stewart
Orange Cohort
July 15, 2009

Micaela Boesche
Technology for Teachers, EDU533

Marc Prensky’s articles, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (2001a, 2001b), leads me to categorize myself within the digital immigrant community, but only barely. His assertion (2001a, pg 1), that “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.” is humbling because my feeling, prior to reading these articles, was that I had kept up with the digital revolution this past 35 years.

I didn’t really use technology in my high school or undergraduate work, barely feeling the early effects when in 1974 I took a Basic programming class in college. Thinking back to those decks of punch cards hardly seems high tech now. The most powerful technology I utilized in school was a handheld HP-25 programmable calculator.

In 1985 I got my first computer at work. A state of the art machine, it boasted a full 20 megabytes of memory. I quickly began converting documents and spreadsheets, such as customer letters and employee schedules, and became a leader and innovator in my organization in applying computers to work applications. As my friends and I began to get our own PC’s, I loved showcasing my skills for them. Then, in 1990, a friend told me that the internet was the future of computers. I didn’t think much of this at the time and for awhile I began to slip backward, towards digital alien status.

Over the next 20 years my company became heavily invested in digital medium. Older Manager’s criticized subordinate supervisors for “spending all their time on their computers and not actually working”. At the same time, company computer applications kept coming, seemingly a new or upgraded version every couple of years. Our computer workload increased to 4-5 hours a day or more. Worse yet, (or better depending upon your point of view), the ability of upper managers to access and process great amounts of budget and productivity information increased, and a new concept of “the vital few” emerged. These were lists of underperforming offices or employees, lists you did not want to ever be on. As the sophistication and sheer number of the programs increased, so did the number of lists until there were enough lists that every office and every employee could count on being on some list at some time or another. The company’s ability to micro-manage had grown beyond anyone’s comprehension and developed a culture of feeling continual failure, this while our bottom line performance indicators improved and vaulted us to become the industry leader. It became apparent to me that our actual management interpersonal skills were subverted and ignored while attention focused on every transient deviation from optimal performance. Digital technology had become a powerful and necessary business tool but skills in motivating and managing the people that make up an effective workforce had not kept pace.

Students, and future workers in the global community, need highly developed technology skills spanning a vast array of inter-disciplinary fields. Gathering the information has become rudimentary; processing, analyzing, and directing activities based on this instantaneous access to information is what will propel our society forward. Learning to incorporate this realization into modern teaching methods by digital immigrants is imperative in order to engage and maintain our student’s interest but it is not an end unto itself. Prensky points out that “Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills.” (2001a, pg 4)

Prensky sees an evolution in the perception of content. He defines “Legacy” content as the old school curriculum, “reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding the writings and ideas of the past, etc.” His definition of new content which he calls “Future” content is understandably “digital and technological” and includes “software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc.” but “it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them.” (2001a, pg 4).

Adopting Prensky’s suggestions does not need to be threatening or perceived as being not useful in teaching the subject matter and social values we believe are the basis for good school curriculum. Meeting our student’s needs and learning styles is and always will be the goal of effective teaching. Prensky cites multiple examples (2001b, pg 6) of adopting video game type media to enhance learning. Our Military already understands the usefulness of multi-media technology in training soldiers. Department of Defense trainers responding to traditional minded educators say “We KNOW the technology works.” “We just want to get on with using it.” New teaching methods can be fun and engaging. It’s time we learned the intense fascination with this media and got ourselves up to speed. The consequences of not doing so will be a lost generation of educated adults.


References:

Prensky, M. (2001a, 9(5), 1-6). Digital Natives Digital Immigrants. Retrieved July 15, 2009, from On the Horizon: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001b, 9(6), 1-6). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part II: Do they really think differently? Retrieved July 14, 2009, from On the Horizon: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf