Marc Prensky Response

I found Marc Prensky's "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" to be very interesting. I had never read an article like this before, where the author is rallying for students to not only use technology in school, but to bring that technology into class with them. Also, never before had I really thought about the differences that exist between digital natives and digital immigrants.

Prensky's points about the differences in the way the two groups use technology were both eye-opening and funny, mostly because they were so very true. Thinking about how digital natives like myself and those younger than me simply accept the influence of technology in our everyday life and easily incorporate it, and those digital immigrants who are trying and yet stuck between the two groups - printing out their emails and not understanding the instantaneous nature of technology definitely made me smile and think of those people I know in all levels of technology. One of the differences that I found most interesting and true was the digital native distaste for "reading the directions" vs. the digital immigrant who pours over the manual before touching any of the parts. Even as a child, I remember just grabbing the pieces to a new toy and figuring out how to put it together, while my mom questioned "aren't you going to read the directions?!" incredulously. I thought it both amusing and interesting that you can see the beginnings of the new digital native language and the digital immigrant accent before the advent of the affordable personal computer, back in the land of toy dolls that talk.

As far as technology in the classroom, I agreed with Prensky on his ideas that today's students speak a different language - after all "lol" "brb" etc have become part of the everyday verbal language, beyond that of the instant message. School has become a place where students definitely do have to "power down" and leave those gagets that have become a part of them away from them, likely feeling that they have entered a boring past. How can school be a place to educate, train, and inspire those of the future when those students feel stagnated by school itself? Prensky, then, is right in that technology must be incorporated into schooling so to truely engage students and to move toward the future. However, I felt that Prensky was somewhat shortsighted in his article, assuming that all students have access to this personal technology. This seems to be a shortcoming in many people who are proponents of the technological education. Not all students have access to basic life necessities, let alone cell phones, laptops, wifi, etc. Therefore, while schools should encourage input, advice, and technological influence from their digital natives, they must also take on the technology revolution themselves and institute programs that provide access to these technological resources for their students. Schools must find a middle ground between banning technology and making it the sole source of school - school must not become "edu-tainment", but a source of education that involves technology.