Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky

 

Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students as categorized by the author

 

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants are two groups that are formed through knowing technology, and not knowing technology.  The groups are generally formed by the year that the person was born in as this averagely changes their understanding of technology.  They are different also due to their knowledge of technology and how well they are able to pick up new skills.  Educators must be wary  of which generation they are teaching, although now it is mostly Digital Natives, so they should teach in a way that appeals to this adapted learning style.  Therefore, current teachers should use more technology in their teaching to help the children learn faster, better and more successfully.

 Overview

A digital native refers to an individual who has grown up using technology and is considered a “native speaker” of electronic media's digital language. This generation of learner multi-tasks efficiently, works quickly, and favors interactivity while learning. ( Prensky )

A digital immigrant is someone who was not raised in a digital environment but still uses and adopts many aspects of technology. ( Prensky )

Here is a mind map image that someone create it  to describes the differences between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

Two Different Views of Tweeting

To summaries the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants which were discussed in the two articles a mind map was created using the graphic organizer, Inspiration. 

Differences between Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students

 

Digital Immigrant teachers, the people sitting in their classes grew up on the “twitch speed” of video games and MTV. They are used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging. They’ve been networked most or all of their lives. They have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction.

Digital Immigrant teachers assume that learners are the same as they have always been, and that the same methods that worked for the teachers when they were students will work for their students now. But that assumption is no longer valid.

The Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old.

Digital Natives’ brains are likely physically different as a result of the digital input they received growing up.

 

(2003) chart outlines the key differences between digital native learners and their digital immigrant teachers.(Wikis website) 

 Digital immigrant accent

The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it.

"The digital immigrant accent includes going slowly, going step-by-step, using outlines for 

 organization, reading manuals, going to the internet second rather than first. Digital natives find this accent and approach very hard to deal with" Marc Prensky in an elearning post interview.

Funny examples 

 The biggest serious problem facing education today

The single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.

Should the Digital Natives learn the old way, or should their Digital Immigrants learn the new?

   Unfortunately, no matter how much the Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old. Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate.

What should the Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives?

So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change. It’s high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run – and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them.