4. Prensky: "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants"

Marc Prensky begins his piece, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", by saying the cause of the decline of U.S. education is ignored; "Our students have  changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system  was designed to teach" (1).    Prensky goes on to say that technology has created a gap between generations; he calls it "a 'singularity' – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back" (1).  The introduction of technology, such as television, computers, video games, cell phones, etc., has dramatically changed the lives of students (K through college), who are the first generation to grow up with this technology.  As a result being constantly surrounded by technology "today's students think and process information fundamentally  differently from their predecessors" (Prensky 1).  

Prensky refers to this generation as Digital Natives because "students today are all "native speakers" of the digital language" (1).   On the other hand, those people who are not from this generation, but are interested in technology and have come to use it are known as Digital Immigrants.  He says that while they may learn to use technology, these Digital Immigrants, like real immigrants, retain an accent, that using technology doesn't come naturally to them.  According to Prensky, this remains an issue because "the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language" (2).  He says that teachers need to change the way they present material because students today can't deal with the slow paced way they currently do.  If something worked for the teacher when they were a student, it will not by any means be guaranteed to work for this new generation of students, and teachers need to be the ones to adapt because technology is such an integral part of the lives of their students.

While reading this, I was wondering who it was supposed to be geared to.  Is it for the immigrant or the native?  Shouldn't the students take some responsibility for paying attention in class, even if it is boring?  I feel like teachers used to not care if students liked the material or not, they had to learn it anyway.

This piece was more about educating students of all ages, than teenagers.  It dealt with the reasons students learn differently due to technology and how teachers tend to resist this.  It relates to the third course assumption that media matters.  Popular culture shapes lives of all Americans whether or not they accept or resist it.  Prensky was saying that students learn differently due to the influence of computers, television, and video games and while the natives celebrate these forms, the immigrants are more hesitant to do so and abandon the methods on which they were raised.

"Digital Immigrants don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV  or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can't.  Of course not – they didn't  practice this skill constantly for all of their formative years" (3).  I think this is awesome, because my mom was always on my case when I was younger, and even my sister's now, not to do homework or study while watching t.v./listening to music, but I never had any issue with it that she assumed I did, simply because she would never be able to do it.