A Digital Immigrant in a Digital Native's World
A digital native is said to be an individual born after 1980. Someone who is unaware of the world that their parents, grandparents, and elders had grown up in. Marc Prensky discusses digital natives and their brain structure in his 2001 article, stating how there are currently two cultures of people in the world. Much of these two cultures is developed from attitude and preference in learning. Digital immigrants grew up in a pre-digital era. They are different learners who had to learn a second language of digital media literacy.
In reading Marc Prensky's article, I believe that a digital native is not a person born after 1980. I was born in 1987, and at about to be 30 years of age, believe that I am a digital immigrant. I grew up in the age where yes, there was an Apple computer in our classroom, but we were learning to type and look at a keyboard. I remember Type to Learn in library class where we had to find the letters to type. I remember when the home computer become a big thing, AOL dial-up, the cell phone was introduced, Facebook emailed me because my college purchased it, and how the world has become what it has today. The world that children live in today, and even children born in the mid-90s, is different than the world I grew up in. I continue to learn this second language of digital every day while my students and the students I have had the past 7 years are well aware of all that they need to do and all that goes on in a digital world. I have immigrated into the world in which they live.
My parents have also immigrated into this world. Yet, they are different digital immigrants than I am. Born in the 1950s, my parents have become fully immersed into a world unlike the one they knew. Both of my parents saw the television introduced into homes, and now they carry smart phones that they continue to learn about every day.
Digital natives are those from the mid-90s on....those who grew up with cell phones in their daily lives and whom never knew of a world without readily available technology. Never will they know the days of "F, F, F" and looking up a phone number in a phone book. Is it sad? Or is the world just changing itself?
In reading Marc Prensky's article, I believe that a digital native is not a person born after 1980. I was born in 1987, and at about to be 30 years of age, believe that I am a digital immigrant. I grew up in the age where yes, there was an Apple computer in our classroom, but we were learning to type and look at a keyboard. I remember Type to Learn in library class where we had to find the letters to type. I remember when the home computer become a big thing, AOL dial-up, the cell phone was introduced, Facebook emailed me because my college purchased it, and how the world has become what it has today. The world that children live in today, and even children born in the mid-90s, is different than the world I grew up in. I continue to learn this second language of digital every day while my students and the students I have had the past 7 years are well aware of all that they need to do and all that goes on in a digital world. I have immigrated into the world in which they live.
My parents have also immigrated into this world. Yet, they are different digital immigrants than I am. Born in the 1950s, my parents have become fully immersed into a world unlike the one they knew. Both of my parents saw the television introduced into homes, and now they carry smart phones that they continue to learn about every day.
Digital natives are those from the mid-90s on....those who grew up with cell phones in their daily lives and whom never knew of a world without readily available technology. Never will they know the days of "F, F, F" and looking up a phone number in a phone book. Is it sad? Or is the world just changing itself?
Comments
Post a Comment