Digital Immigrants

Valencia Cartledge
Education Technology
Article Response



I agree that the way that students are taught in schools and in college must change to an extent. Today we live in a technology base world. I feel that if you don’t understand or refuse to learn some technology, you will be lost. I agree with Prensky when he stated, “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. However, I don’t believe that we should just teach the students technology; I think they need to learn the old way of learning and incorporate technology teaching as an aid. I am a Digital Immigrant, I step a little forward to using technology, but I do also have a foot in the past. Teach me how to do the work and later show me how technology can assist me. According to Prensky, “we older folks are having to learn a new language to keep up with our children.” I feel that if we don’t make some type of attempt to learn it, we will always be one step behind our children.

According to Prensky, the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language, are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language. I don’t feel that this is the biggest problem facing education is Digital Immigrant instructors. I feel the biggest problem in education is parents; the government and teachers are not working together to make sure that the students are getting a good education.

According to Prensky, “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer the graphic before their text rather than the opposite.” I agree with Prenksy on this observation. I disagree with Prensky when he stated, “Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice. I disagree with this statement, I am an Immigrant and I do appreciate these new skills, once I have learned them. I agree with Prensky, when he stated,” Children raised with the computer “think differently from the rest of us. We have a computer in our home; I see a big difference between my children and I. In the old days I had to read hardback books and research on my own. Now my children can just pull up what ever they need on the computer. I agree with VanSlyke when he stated, “The Internet, being a primary medium of this emerging culture, is certainly not something that we in education can ignore. But before we discard all of our Digital Immigrant notions of teaching and learning, we should answer a number of questions.” Are all the students, for example, exposed to information technology and video games to the same extent?

I feel that the technology can assist our students in learning once they have mastered the
skills first that they will late use on the computer.