Weekly Reading: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

 According to Marc Prensky(2001) , “ Today’s students have no just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as had happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place.  One might even call it’s a “Singularity”- an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20t century” (Prensky, 2001).  Prenskys idea of singularity gives me the extra boost in motivation to set out and find and learn more technological learning tools and systems.  With today’s students- K-through college, research has shown they have been exposed to and grown up with new technologies.  Prensky (2001) states, “They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age” (Prensky, 2001).  As a result, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.  Thankfully, I as a future educator have time to adapt, evolve and implement new ways to presenting, teaching and passing on material to what Prensky call these new “digital natives”.  


Below is a link to Prenskys Article on Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants 
http://edu315.wikispaces.com/file/view/Prensky+-+Digital+Natives%2C+Digital+Immigrants+-+Part1.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001). On the horizon. (5

 ed., Vol. 9). MCB University Press