Digital+Natives+~+A+Conversation

Please read the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and share your thoughts with the class. Feel free to respond to the comments of others. (Note: we are using the wiki like a forum but it does not have a threaded discussion tool like a true forum.)

I have read the hand out Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. I see a lot of me in the article. I agree, with the author that there is a divide that has to be bridged, but we have to acknowledge the problem before we can begin to work on the task of solving it! As co partners in this endeavor Educators and Students must recognize thier differences, accept where each has come from and respect where each is and agree to work towards a common goal of moving forward together. The traditional "product" of education has to be updated and repackaged to meet the contemporary needs of our students. I'll be interested in the response of my coworkers to this article. ~ Barry Sites

It was scary for me to read this article. I was amazed to see that it was written in 2001, because it is still so true. Like Barry, I see myself in the article and admit to being a digital immigrant. My core beliefs are to move toward more person-to-person interaction in life, but also within the school setting. However, I can see that increasing the use of technology could help in education. I happen to work with children who have speech and language disorders and I am constantly slowing the world down for them. They seem to only be able to handle small chunks of information in step-by-step order and need time to process that information. They are not like the typical student depicted in the article. I will need to chew on the information a bit and see what I can do as an SLP to add more technology to my speech sessions. I am already a big fan of the CD-Roms available to increase auditory processing skills and phonemic awareness. I also have several that I use to add to therapy for receptive and expressive language and I use downloaded clip art to make articulation flash cards. I will look into what else I can do. Thank you for the article, Dottie. Lyn Govoni

Great article. I see this evolution in my classes and have for several years. At times, I seem almost out of place among the Digital Natives. On the other hand, it seems, at least in our school, many of the students are also digital immigrants. Those that have access to the various products are the "natives" whereas those without seem resistant to it are the "immigrants" and exude an almost anti -digital attitude. I am very interested in the idea Monkey Wrench idea and hope it will have a wide application. Thanks, Dotties. Fin

Very interesting article. I saw parallels with my own classes right away. Certainly makes me think about another level of learning style (a\ la Gardner) we need to seriously think about. Talk about evolution in action (" it is very likely that our student's brains have physically changed...")! I also keep thinking about the importance of staff development for us "immigrants" to adapt curriculum into a more "student of the future" form... although I do not think making up games for info dissemination is always the answer... Barb T

I find the patience level of kids now a days is very low. They want instant gratification and if they don't get it they are very frustrated. We are working with kids who want it now and they are working with adults who say just have a little patience and I will get to it :-) There must be a way to get a happy medium for all. Not sure what that is but I will take my time and find it and my sixteen year old will continue to get frustrated with the slowness of her mom and anything else that doesn't work within a second of trying it ;-) Cheryl M.

I definitely am of the "old school" of thinking that students cannot focus on their reading/work if they are listening to music while studying. I am still struggling with that concept. I would like to continue to utilize more technology in my classes, as music is a great venue for that. Hopefully Dorothy keeps offering this class every summer... I still use too much paper! However, I am somewhat concerned that cursive writing, or any kind of penmanship for that matter, will become a dying art. I know my own children ages 19 and 21 do not know how to write in cursive. I also agree with Barbara and Cheryl in that our students have had a steady diet of games. Games are great, unfortunately most of daily adult life does not involve playing games. I have also noticed with my 7th and 8th graders that they are extremely impatient with their laptops. If the program they are using does not respond in 1 second or less they are calling it "a piece of junk" or worse. As with all things in life, everything in moderation. Thanks to Dorothy for starting this dialogue, we need to continue it! Linda