Wow! What a compelling and forceful article! It made a wonderful and easily understandable comparison between today's students who are completely immersed in digital technology (A.K.A Digital Natives) and the struggle to educate them with educators (A.K.A Digital Immigrants) who have not grown up with this new technology and that are learning it much more slowly than the students that they teach. According to Prensky, "today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors" (Prensky, 2001).
Therefore, it's crucial that today's educators "learn to communicate in the language and style of their students" (Prensky, 2001). This means that they need to accept the reality that they need to receive information faster, be able to parallel process, multi-task, and have more random access just like their students are doing.
I truly enjoyed his description of his way of teaching digital natives by inventing computer games to do the job. We need to explore the issue of "edutainment" some more.
Valerie,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post. I also loved how you were able to sum it up in a few main points.
It is easy to see the comparisons between the digital natives and digital immigrants of today. Prensky makes a valid point when he states, “today’s educators need to learn to communicate in the same language and style of their students” (Prensky, 2001). It’s as if the generation gap is becoming smaller and smaller as society and all the factors which shape society are so rapidly changing.
So how on earth do we present the information faster when so many students are falling behind? How do we present more of a parallel and multitasking curriculum? My hope is that we will be able to collaborate more as we are these next few generations’ educators.
-Jenna