Prensky, Kirschner, Digital Natives, and Digital Immigrants

   

    Prensky describes digital natives as "students today [who] are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet" (Prensky 2001), and digital immigrants as "Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them" (Prensky 2001). He also notes how there is a great divide between the digital natives and immigrants, and that is the "accent" that digital immigrants have. This "accent" that digital immigrants have "a foot in the past" (Prensky 2001), and this is seen through them doing things such as turning to the internet secondarily rather than primarily for information, and reading from a manual for a program rather than thinking that the program itself will teach us. One of Presnky's views is that there needs to be a different educational approach to digital natives than there was to digital immigrants. He states how this is because digital natives are aware that if they "actually want to learn something (usually for their own purposes) the tools online are available for them to do it on their own.... The Digital Natives exploit this to the fullest, while ignoring, to a larger and larger extent, the things they are not motivated to learn, which, unfortunately, includes most, if not all, of their schoolwork" (Prensky 2004). 

    According to Prensky, I would be a digital native, and he would argue that this has affected my learning via my ability to multitask. However, I believe that being a digital native has affected my learning because I have access to the internet, which not only helps me to research whatever I want whenever I want within seconds, versus having to go to a library, but it also gives me the ability to find answers. By this, I mean it gives me, and every other student, access to sites like Chegg, Course Hero, and Quizlet; all websites that will give me, and other students, the correct answers to questions without having to learn any of the material at all. I think this is a bigger issue to learning as a digital native rather than the ability to multitask, and this is what needs to be taken into consideration when talking about curriculum restructuring in the category of Prensky and his ideas. 

    However, Kirschner apposes this view, stating that there is, both, no such thing as a digital native who "is information-skilled simply because (s)he has never known a world that was not digital" (Kirschner 2017), and how curriculum and "designing education that assumes the presence of this ability hinders rather than helps learning" (Kirschner 2017). He also believes that just because you are labeled as a "digital native", it does not mean that you are digitally literate. When talking about digital literacy, it is meant that one is able to effectively use technology to communicate, research, and overall use it successfully. I would have to agree with Kirschner that even though one may be a "digital native", not everyone is digitally literate since one simply may not have access to technology, or they may not want to use it. 

 

Sources

Prensky, M. (2004). The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native: What They Do Differently Because of Technology, and How They Do It.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. 

Kirschner, P. (2017). The Myths of the Digital Native and the Multitasker

Song of the week is Rollin, we have had such beautiful weather this week and this song has been on repeat for me! https://youtu.be/5f_JiibvQAM