Thursday, October 05, 2006
Marc Prensky – Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Response
Marc Prensky raises a lot of valid points that really got me thinking about my experiences as a teacher, my experiences as a student, and also future issues I will have to address as a parent. Upon first reading his article I began to reflect on my experiences as a high school teacher in rural North Carolina. As an inexperienced first-year teacher I was happy to take any advice, strategies, tips, and helpful hints that anyone was willing to throw my way. In the district where I taught they were launching a new teaching strategy called “Focused Learning”. To many of the veteran teachers this new pedagogy seemed like more of the same junk that is thrown out every year to teachers as the new strategy of the moment. However, many of the strategies made sense to me and seem to ring true to the argument that Prensky makes, that students today are different and learn differently than students of the past, and we as educators had better modify the way we teach if we want to keep our students engaged. The “Focused Learning” model made the point that students today have the ability to “click” and get info in the blink of an eye and are also used to flipping through 100 + television channels and therefore as teachers we can’t expect students to listen and pay attention to long lectures. The model instead focused on chunking information, breaking it into pieces, and incorporating pair and group work and lots of movement around the classroom. As a new teacher I was open to these strategies and often tried to incorporate them into the classroom, and they were often successful. There was however, a lot of resistance from the more experienced teachers, and lots of the comments seemed to parallel the thoughts of Prensky’s digital immigrants. These older educators wanted to teach the way they had been taught and often blamed students for not learning. I could always sympathize with these veteran teachers because I could sense their frustration (and of course experienced it myself!) with the students, noticing they never seemed to read or even take their textbooks home and never seemed to take the time to sit down and study the material. It was frustrating because that’s the way I went through school and so did these teachers, but after reading Prensky it makes sense that we are probably never going to convince “digital natives” to take home a heavy outdated textbook and sit down and read. That must just seem preposterous and arcane to digital natives. If we are going to reach these students we are going to have to accept Prensky’s challenge and begin to think and teach in ways that will hold the native’s interest (no matter how intimidating this seems!!). I must say my most triumphant moment in the classroom was the day my classes worked in the computer lab for an entire class period creating PowerPoint presentations on ancient African civilizations. They used the internet to get their info and then presented their presentations the next day in class. So many of my students, from honors students to remedial students, told me how much they enjoyed that class and how much they learned. It was inspiring and frustrating at the same time. I saw the lights come on for so many students but knew we wouldn’t be able to organize classes in the lab often because use of the computer lab was so limited!
As a graduate student I have also experienced the digital divide. To be perfectly honest, the majority of professors that I have come into contact with seem to be trying really hard to bridge the digital divide. All professors give email addresses on their syllabi and encourage students to communicate with them in that way, and many utilize web ct. I often find that I have a much stronger “accent” than most of my professors. Does that mean Higher Ed is ahead of K-12 when it comes to conquering the digital divide? I don’t know. My final reflection had me thinking about parenting techniques. As a child I loved to read and really look back fondly on time spent reading alone or with my parents or grandparents. My parents limited my TV time (we never had cable) and my sister and I never played video games. I’m really glad I was raised in that way and plan on raising my own children with lots of books around and limited TV and computer time. I have always thought that made me a pretty responsible future parent. However, reading the Prensky article made me start to doubt this. Perhaps I am being naïve. Can I really limit TV time and is it wise to limit computer time if other children are so exposed to these types of media. Perhaps my lack of interaction with video games, TV computers etc. explains my technophobia (I’m sure it must). Maybe my parenting “ideas” would put my children at a disadvantage. Hmmmm
Marc Prensky raises a lot of valid points that really got me thinking about my experiences as a teacher, my experiences as a student, and also future issues I will have to address as a parent. Upon first reading his article I began to reflect on my experiences as a high school teacher in rural North Carolina. As an inexperienced first-year teacher I was happy to take any advice, strategies, tips, and helpful hints that anyone was willing to throw my way. In the district where I taught they were launching a new teaching strategy called “Focused Learning”. To many of the veteran teachers this new pedagogy seemed like more of the same junk that is thrown out every year to teachers as the new strategy of the moment. However, many of the strategies made sense to me and seem to ring true to the argument that Prensky makes, that students today are different and learn differently than students of the past, and we as educators had better modify the way we teach if we want to keep our students engaged. The “Focused Learning” model made the point that students today have the ability to “click” and get info in the blink of an eye and are also used to flipping through 100 + television channels and therefore as teachers we can’t expect students to listen and pay attention to long lectures. The model instead focused on chunking information, breaking it into pieces, and incorporating pair and group work and lots of movement around the classroom. As a new teacher I was open to these strategies and often tried to incorporate them into the classroom, and they were often successful. There was however, a lot of resistance from the more experienced teachers, and lots of the comments seemed to parallel the thoughts of Prensky’s digital immigrants. These older educators wanted to teach the way they had been taught and often blamed students for not learning. I could always sympathize with these veteran teachers because I could sense their frustration (and of course experienced it myself!) with the students, noticing they never seemed to read or even take their textbooks home and never seemed to take the time to sit down and study the material. It was frustrating because that’s the way I went through school and so did these teachers, but after reading Prensky it makes sense that we are probably never going to convince “digital natives” to take home a heavy outdated textbook and sit down and read. That must just seem preposterous and arcane to digital natives. If we are going to reach these students we are going to have to accept Prensky’s challenge and begin to think and teach in ways that will hold the native’s interest (no matter how intimidating this seems!!). I must say my most triumphant moment in the classroom was the day my classes worked in the computer lab for an entire class period creating PowerPoint presentations on ancient African civilizations. They used the internet to get their info and then presented their presentations the next day in class. So many of my students, from honors students to remedial students, told me how much they enjoyed that class and how much they learned. It was inspiring and frustrating at the same time. I saw the lights come on for so many students but knew we wouldn’t be able to organize classes in the lab often because use of the computer lab was so limited!
As a graduate student I have also experienced the digital divide. To be perfectly honest, the majority of professors that I have come into contact with seem to be trying really hard to bridge the digital divide. All professors give email addresses on their syllabi and encourage students to communicate with them in that way, and many utilize web ct. I often find that I have a much stronger “accent” than most of my professors. Does that mean Higher Ed is ahead of K-12 when it comes to conquering the digital divide? I don’t know. My final reflection had me thinking about parenting techniques. As a child I loved to read and really look back fondly on time spent reading alone or with my parents or grandparents. My parents limited my TV time (we never had cable) and my sister and I never played video games. I’m really glad I was raised in that way and plan on raising my own children with lots of books around and limited TV and computer time. I have always thought that made me a pretty responsible future parent. However, reading the Prensky article made me start to doubt this. Perhaps I am being naïve. Can I really limit TV time and is it wise to limit computer time if other children are so exposed to these types of media. Perhaps my lack of interaction with video games, TV computers etc. explains my technophobia (I’m sure it must). Maybe my parenting “ideas” would put my children at a disadvantage. Hmmmm
# posted by Stephanie @ 5:46 PM 
Comments:
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Stephanie,
You raise great cultural questions when you consider the implications of the technological tools at our disposal. There is a difficult and delicate balance between learning what is available and making choices for oneself and one's extended communities. The pace of technological advancement is not going to slow. Cultures rely on those who study the issues, commit themselves to equitable application and legislation, and reflect upon the outcomes. Finding the work of scholars whom we can trust is an important part of bridging the issues of the digital divide. Even then, we must be wary that we do not let the scholars or the politicos go make our decisions for us. I hope we will identify the resources that have been recognized as consistently making contributions to the debates. When we have our resources, we can make well-informed decisions. We can even change our minds and change our practices. That's our goal. It is an ongoing process, nothing more and nothing less.
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You raise great cultural questions when you consider the implications of the technological tools at our disposal. There is a difficult and delicate balance between learning what is available and making choices for oneself and one's extended communities. The pace of technological advancement is not going to slow. Cultures rely on those who study the issues, commit themselves to equitable application and legislation, and reflect upon the outcomes. Finding the work of scholars whom we can trust is an important part of bridging the issues of the digital divide. Even then, we must be wary that we do not let the scholars or the politicos go make our decisions for us. I hope we will identify the resources that have been recognized as consistently making contributions to the debates. When we have our resources, we can make well-informed decisions. We can even change our minds and change our practices. That's our goal. It is an ongoing process, nothing more and nothing less.
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