HU2642 post #9 -- a good ol' fashioned two-fer!
Reading: "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" and "Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?", by Marc Prensky (both 2001)
In Part I, Prensky uses the analogy of "natives" and "immigrants" to explain a fundamental difference he has identified in the way people approach learning in the digital era. The "natives" -- those who grew up with video games, cell phones, the infinitely inter-clickable Internet, among other things -- speak the "digital language" intuitively because they've been surrounded by it their whole lives, while "immigrants" have to re-train their brains to a whole different way of thinking.
The second page, where he talks a lot about the immigrants, sounds like it was written about my dad. He always had printouts of emails around. My parents still have a phone on the kitchen wall with an actual rotary dial on it. Yet, thinking about my dad as an immigrant doesn't make a lot of sense. Geographically speaking, he hasn't moved much in the last 50 years; in some sense you'd think he has a right to feel encroached upon by all this newfangled gadgetry. The digital world that exists now grew up around him. And while he's done much better than some at embracing this new order, it was still worth a pretty good giggle for me when he actually signed up for facebook a few months ago. (I have some of this immigrant blood in my veins; I like to point out that I've been a member of facebook since it was thefacebook. These young'uns don't remember when you were only allowed to upload ONE picture to your account at a time.)
It has to feel something like what Poland felt like in 1939: suddenly you wake up and find you aren't where you were anymore. However, unlike geographical conquests, progressions in technology aren't meant to subjugate the "defenders" ... that's just a side effect. For better or worse, the world has changed significantly, and I wholly agree with Prensky in that educational "content in the language of the Digital Natives" (4) is the wave of the future. But it's far from a new idea; I believe the concept of considering your audience when preparing material to present -- regardless of the medium -- is generally attributed to Ancient Greece. All things old are new again.
In Part II, he mainly tries a different tack to make the same argument. Instead of the anecdotal, conversational style from Part I, Prensky switches to a traditional, academic approach -- complete with a slew of properly cited reference materials. It's hardly surprising that I found Part II less engaging to read; we natives often struggle with those immigrants' accents.
Reading: From Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (2008), "Introduction" (pp. 1-15) by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
This reading also deals with Digital Natives. It also mentions the idea of Immigrants and invents (as far as I know) the term "Digital Settlers" but leaves both these sets aside, at least in terms of the Introduction. And instead of focusing on the traditional classroom education of Natives, it wings to the other end: social development.
The first part of this makes me feel a lot better about myself. All this time, I thought of myself as having no life since I don't get out much and spend a lot of time in front of my computer, but Palfrey and Gasser would simply argue that I live my life in the context of the new digital paradigm. And while I was no stranger to the local library growing up, I've been saying for years that "research equals Google search" ... imagine my surprise and excitement when I found almost those exact words on page 6. Page 6 of a publication with the credibility of an actual book!
The authors promote the Digital Natives and their rights to explore, be creative, and generally take advantage of the opportunities they find in digital space. But moreso that parents of these native creatures need not panic that their children's perspective is so blindingly different that they can't be reached. It is soothing for parents to read (in a book!) that their "traditional values and common sense... will be relevant in this new world, too." I totally agree.
In Part I, Prensky uses the analogy of "natives" and "immigrants" to explain a fundamental difference he has identified in the way people approach learning in the digital era. The "natives" -- those who grew up with video games, cell phones, the infinitely inter-clickable Internet, among other things -- speak the "digital language" intuitively because they've been surrounded by it their whole lives, while "immigrants" have to re-train their brains to a whole different way of thinking.
The second page, where he talks a lot about the immigrants, sounds like it was written about my dad. He always had printouts of emails around. My parents still have a phone on the kitchen wall with an actual rotary dial on it. Yet, thinking about my dad as an immigrant doesn't make a lot of sense. Geographically speaking, he hasn't moved much in the last 50 years; in some sense you'd think he has a right to feel encroached upon by all this newfangled gadgetry. The digital world that exists now grew up around him. And while he's done much better than some at embracing this new order, it was still worth a pretty good giggle for me when he actually signed up for facebook a few months ago. (I have some of this immigrant blood in my veins; I like to point out that I've been a member of facebook since it was thefacebook. These young'uns don't remember when you were only allowed to upload ONE picture to your account at a time.)
It has to feel something like what Poland felt like in 1939: suddenly you wake up and find you aren't where you were anymore. However, unlike geographical conquests, progressions in technology aren't meant to subjugate the "defenders" ... that's just a side effect. For better or worse, the world has changed significantly, and I wholly agree with Prensky in that educational "content in the language of the Digital Natives" (4) is the wave of the future. But it's far from a new idea; I believe the concept of considering your audience when preparing material to present -- regardless of the medium -- is generally attributed to Ancient Greece. All things old are new again.
In Part II, he mainly tries a different tack to make the same argument. Instead of the anecdotal, conversational style from Part I, Prensky switches to a traditional, academic approach -- complete with a slew of properly cited reference materials. It's hardly surprising that I found Part II less engaging to read; we natives often struggle with those immigrants' accents.
Reading: From Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (2008), "Introduction" (pp. 1-15) by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
This reading also deals with Digital Natives. It also mentions the idea of Immigrants and invents (as far as I know) the term "Digital Settlers" but leaves both these sets aside, at least in terms of the Introduction. And instead of focusing on the traditional classroom education of Natives, it wings to the other end: social development.
The first part of this makes me feel a lot better about myself. All this time, I thought of myself as having no life since I don't get out much and spend a lot of time in front of my computer, but Palfrey and Gasser would simply argue that I live my life in the context of the new digital paradigm. And while I was no stranger to the local library growing up, I've been saying for years that "research equals Google search" ... imagine my surprise and excitement when I found almost those exact words on page 6. Page 6 of a publication with the credibility of an actual book!
The authors promote the Digital Natives and their rights to explore, be creative, and generally take advantage of the opportunities they find in digital space. But moreso that parents of these native creatures need not panic that their children's perspective is so blindingly different that they can't be reached. It is soothing for parents to read (in a book!) that their "traditional values and common sense... will be relevant in this new world, too." I totally agree.