In his article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, Marc Prensky expounds on the importance of acknowledging and addressing the unique educational needs of "Digital Natives," those who grew up immersed in media and communication technology, adding that the public education currently being provided to them by "Digital Immigrants," those who witnessed digital technology's emergence in their lifetimes, is vastly insufficient and unsuitable. He makes the point that most of today's students, all the way from Kindergarten to College, are Digital Natives, and that it is likely that there are singular differences between the way these kids are prepared to process information and the way prior generations were prepared to do the same thing; namely, that Digital Natives have been programmed by television, video games, cell phones and the internet, among other technology, to function best in an environment that is highly stimulating, fast-paced, randomly-accessible, and entertaining.
Prensky asserts that today's up-and-coming generation of students is less likely to be able to learn from "conventional" schooling methods but may be compensated for this handicap by having increased facility with learning from stimulating, fast-paced, randomly accessible, and entertaining lessons modeled after digital formats that they're used to, such as video game formats. He also argues that public educators don't do nearly as much as they should to tap into their students' affinities for all things digital, and that there is an urgent need for public educators to wake up, stop "grousing" about their kids' lack of desire to engage, and start digitally entertaining their students' brains.
Read more. . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment