Marc Prensky Reflection

In Marc Prensky's article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", he describes a digital native as our K through college students who have grown up in a digital world. "Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet" (p. 1). According to Prensky, they have spent their entire lives surrounded by technology. As a result this has caused a shift in the way our students process information. It could even be possible that all the exposure to a digital world has caused this generation of students brains to develop differently.

Students today feel bored with the material being presented to them. Marc Prensky puts today's students in three categories; the students who are truly self-motivated, the students who go through the motions, and the students who tune us out. The first two of these groups can be dealt with well rather well by our current education system but the third group can become a challenging group. These are the students that feel as if they are not learning any relevant information in school and the information presented to them in school will be of no use to them in their futures. They need engaging material that they can relate to. Our students are exposed to technology very early in life. According to the T4 video "Pay Attention", 70% of our 4-6 year old will have access to a computer. It makes sense that they feel the most engaged with this learning style.

We need to catch up with our future generation as well as other countries in the world when it comes to academics. In the UK the British government has just given 350 million pounds to BBC to develop a digital curriculum. In America we consistently fall behind in academics, obviously something isn't working and it is about time we invested in our youth.

I am a Digital Immigrant, I was not born into a digital world but I am interested in advancing my skills in technology. As Marc Prensky would say I have a very heavy accent in the digital world. I don't recall using the computer very often in my high school years but I did play Atari and Nintendo occasionally as a child and would like to believe I was fairly good at it. College is when I became more exposed to this digital world. I was a science major so my classes consisted of large lecture halls where using PowerPoint and audio equipment was crucial for the professor to reach all the students. I definitely will be researching ideas to bring into my classroom to engage my students better. I really liked the idea of using cell phones for quizzes. Not only is it environmentally friendly but it will provide the students with the instant gratification that they are so accustomed to. Understanding that I process information differently is a concept that I will have to grasp so I will have the ability to teach a generation that in a sense does not speak the same language as me.