Today’s Students

In 2001, a term to characterize this period was proposed by Marc Prensky (2001a, 2001b), who called them “Digital Natives”, because he noticed they are to be “native speakers” of the digital language of computers and the Internet. According to Prensky (2001a), Digital Natives were different from earlier peiods, whom he described as Digital Immigrants, and they had established new mindset, competences, and accesses to learning. Prensky characterised the whole period with the change and proposed that the new generation comprehended contrastingly and that this revolution had been caused by a growth of technological development. In his second article Prensky (2001b) also declared that the brains of Digital Natives were physically contrast to those of earlier generations because of the explicit impacts of digital technologies. In opposition to Digital Natives, those who were not born in the digital period and had embraced many of the new technologies later in life, were named the “Digital Immigrants” (Prensky, 2001a). On the contrary to Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants had to learn and adapt to using rising technologies rather than seeing them as natural tools as part of their world. According to Prensky, no matter how well Digital Immigrants adjusted to the new condition, they would cling to their digital immigrant significance. Prensky also shared a subject to be discussed that is about the serious break he had analysed between Digital Native students and the technological literacy of their Digital Immigrant tutors, and he continued to demand that this generation break was “the biggest single problem facing education today” (2001 p.2). The attributes and learning preferences of Digital Native students, he claimed, were conflicting with the teaching practice of their teachers. As this group of young people joined higher education, educators would require to adopt their teaching practices in order to accommodate the demands of the new generation of learners (Prensky, 2001a).

Two recent comments led me  to finally enter the 21st century. First, back to my first year teaching at Norway in 2010. I was asked by my Principal to use the smart board in my class. I told her that I did not have any experience in using the smart board. That is why I had never used the smart board in my classroom. I would prefer to use the ordinary white board in my teaching and learning process. She looked at me in an odd and curious way (like she was talking to someone from another planet) and stated in a matter of fact manner, “Tjandra, even your 5th graders could operate the smart board. You need to learn from them.” I know that she did not have any intention to humiliate me, but that struck me.

Second, I was chatting with my friends through Facebook when she asked me whether I have a Blackberry or not. She told me that we could chat using the Blackberry Messager. I told her that I did not have any Blackberry. I am using an Android phone. Then she asked me my WhatsApp. I was a bit frustrated at that time when I heard that. It was because I did not have any WhatsApp either. I thought that I could chat using my Android phone, or if I need a bigger screen, I just used my laptop. That is why I did not want to use WhatsApp.  

This concept of digital native vs. digital immigrant causes a great deal of awareness to me. Young people in our community are digital natives. They seem to be very pleased with everything from iPhones to IPads. Digital immigrants, like me, just never accept that good feeling with these technologies. Yes, we may learn to adjust by using mobile phones, email, Facebook, and so forth but it just does not and perhaps will never be very natural for us. It is like studying a second language you can use it orally but with some problems. Perhaps we have a crucial time in our lives for technology, similar to when we do for language. When we are small, we catch the language so quickly but find it so much challenging to learn a new language when we are adult. The same seems to be true for technology.

So, I forced myself to keep up to date with the technology development. I believe that technology has brought a huge impact in my life. In the past, I used my phone only for calling or receiving a call and sending and receiving text messages. Now, I use my phone to take pictures, listening to the radio, check email, surf at the internet, Facebooking, chatting through Yahoo Messager, checking the weather forecast, picture editing and many more. If there is a problem which includes technology usage, I usually tend to search the answer at the internet instead of asking help from my colleague. That is because in my school, the IT person who deals with the hardware and software stays in another building a bit far from our school. Only then, when I could not find the answer at the internet, then I would call him asking for help.

So, what about you? Are you a digital native or a digital immigrant and how does it impact your life?

References

Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

Prensky, M. (2001b). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, part 2: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6), 6.

Plante, T. (2012, July 24). Digital native vs. digital immigrant? which are you?. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/do-the-right-thing/201207/digital-native-vs-digital-immigrant-which-are-you